


Can't Get Over You

by Applesandbannas747



Category: Fence (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-09-23 00:37:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 31,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20331157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Applesandbannas747/pseuds/Applesandbannas747
Summary: Seiji's got a crush but he knows better than to expect anything to come of it.





	1. Chapter 1

Seiji knew that he liked Nicholas Cox. He wasn’t happy about it. But he'd accepted it. It was an unpleasant burden but not one he planned to do anything about. It would fade if left alone.

He couldn’t decisively say what had caught him about Nicholas. Perhaps it was his fire. Or the way he treated Seiji, like no one else ever treated Seiji, with a refreshing mix of plucky antagonism and weird moments of sincerity. But for whatever reason, annoyance had turned to a sort of fascination which had turned, very inconveniently and unexpectedly, into _like. _

Seiji didn't waste time denying it or hiding from it. Nor did he waste time with daydreams and fantasies wherein he'd tell his feelings to Nicholas and find them miraculously reciprocated. There was no point in either course of action. He was stuck with this affection and there was not a chance in the world that it could go anywhere. Which was fine. Seiji didn't get his hopes up for things he couldn't have. So all he wanted was for his feelings to _go. _To leave him be. It would happen, he reasoned, in time.

“Nicholas,” Seiji summoned his roommate, cross and stern. “Come here please.”

“You're not fooling me with your manners,” Nicholas said as he ambled across their small room to get to their shared bathroom, by which Seiji was already standing. “You're pissed and a ‘please’ can’t hide that.” Seiji certainly wasn't trying to hide his irritation. He never had, when it came to Nicholas because to do so would cause him to explode with all the unspent anger he'd end up with. And recently he liked to let it through at every opportunity. Because there _was_ something he was trying to hide.

“Can you tell me what you see when you look at our floor?” Seiji asked, gesturing for emphasis.

“Uh, tiles?”

“Yes, and what about those tiles do you notice?”

“They're…wet?”

“Yes, good job, you've identified the problem.”

“They'll dry.”

“They'll dry faster when you go in there and clean up the mess you made.”

“Don't wanna.”

“You know what I don't want? Wet socks. Go wipe up your water.”

“But your socks would dry a little path to the mirror and then you'll be able to go in and check your hair anytime you want even while the rest of the floor is drying. It's a small sacrifice to make.”

“Then _you_ can make it,” Seiji scowled. There was a lot in Nicholas’s comment, from the suggestion that Seiji should suffer the consequences of Nicholas's action to the implication that Seiji was vain and needed the bathroom only so that he could gaze upon himself. He didn't want to dwell on that topic and so he ignored it instead. “If you can’t refrain from traipsing around the bathroom while you're still sopping wet,” _don't dwell on _that_ thought_, “then you have to wipe down the bathroom after. How many times have I told you that?”

“Don't know. I mostly tune you out.”

“I've noticed.”

“Great. This was a good talk. Have fun with your wet socks.”

“Nicholas.” Seiji’s voice snapped out of him and he knew it sounded close to hysteric but he couldn't help it. There was no one in the world more irritating than Nicholas Cox. More infuriating and contrarian and _impossible. _He simply didn't behave in the way he was supposed to. In the way Seiji wanted him to. “Is it really so much to ask that you just clean up after yourself?”

“Absolutely.”

“In a joint space,” Seiji pressed on. “I don't mind—I won't stop you from being a disgusting slob on your side of the room. But you can't leave the bathroom soggy!”

“I can do whatever I want.” Nicholas was grinning, amused and entertained and loving how much he was upsetting Seiji. That was possibly the reason he refused to comply with Seiji's requests in the first place. To get on Seiji’s nerves more than because he was averse to clean spaces.

At first, Seiji had been pretty sure Nicholas was just inconsiderate. Mostly in the way of forgetting to do the polite thing, or not realizing when he was doing the rude thing. But _lately. _Lately, he'd decided it was _funny_ to make Seiji mad. He was doing it on purpose. Which meant that the harder Seiji dug his heels in when insisting Nicholas do something—_anything—_the deeper he was digging his own grave. Nicholas wouldn't do it, no matter how hard Seiji pushed. He was having too much fun to give in. And yet, Seiji couldn't stop from jumping on every opportunity to call Nicholas on his terrible manners. And then this would happen. Seiji, furious and righteous; Nicholas, smiling and stubborn.

Seiji wished he didn't like Nicholas so much. He wished he could turn it off. Shove it away. Ignore it completely. Instead, he was stuck subconsciously _admiring _the very same smile that was causing him so much grief. Which just made him even madder. He couldn't banish his feelings. And he couldn’t make Nicholas change into someone more tolerable—someone he wouldn't hate liking so much—either. 

“I've met slugs more sanitary than you,” Seiji growled, winding down and ready to admit defeat. But not before a couple more insults were dealt.

“Funny, because I've met slugs more appealing than _you_.” Nicholas’s easy smile didn't shift at all when he said it. There was no sign in his face that indicated any knowledge of how that sentence would hurt Seiji. If there was even the slightest flicker in his eyes, the tiniest broadening of his grin, any smugness at all in his face, Seiji would have sworn he knew. Would have been convinced that Nicholas knew about his mortifying crush and was intentionally using it against him. But Nicholas didn't even bother to notice the hurt Seiji couldn't entirely hide. It wasn't a pleasant thing, to be told you're less appealing than a _slug_ by the boy you're so helplessly enamored with.

“You'd be lucky to get so much as a pity date out of any of those poor slugs,” he shot back after only a beat too long.

“Says you. I'm a hit with the slugs,” Nicholas winked and then his attention was drifting and Seiji knew he was about to leave. But it was too early to let him go. Seiji’s anger had been stoked by insult and now he was determined that Nicholas do as he asked and wipe down the bathroom.

“I'll file a complaint,” Seiji threatened. Nicholas laughed.

“Yeah, okay. Have fun with that. Coach will _love_ hearing that, but hey. It's your grave, not mine.”

“I don't imagine it would look great on your record.”

“There are worse things,” Nicholas was unconcerned. “What will it say? _Leaves floors wet occasionally?_ How unimaginably awful.”

“Occasionally? You _always_ do this!”

“So clean it yourself. It doesn't bug me.”

“You're such a child, I can't believe—,”

A solid shove and a stuttering step and Seiji was falling. He regained his footing, barely, and with the help of the bathroom counter. Already he could feel the squelching wetness of his socks.

Enraged, he pushed off the counter and advanced on Nicholas, seriously considering another fistfight.


	2. Chapter 2

Nick knew that Seiji Katayama liked him. It had taken him maybe a week to figure it out. The heightened aggression, the lingering looks _and_ the annoyed expressions that often followed them like Seiji was thinking _you’ve got to be kidding me—him?!,_ the sudden self-conscious quality he possessed now whenever Nick was around—making sure to change well out of sight, glancing nervously at him occasionally, catching his lip between his teeth, and, once, blushing. That blush had been what had tipped the balance of Nick’s understanding.

It was absurd to think that Seiji would like him. But, no matter how you looked at it, he did. Nick didn’t get it at all. Seiji was still obviously annoyed by pretty much everything about him so how had this happened? It probably drove Seiji mad. Especially, Nick had noticed, when Seiji was reminded of all the ways his behavior had slipped to indicate his crush. Like how he spent much more time in front of the mirror lately, fixing his hair. He’d always been overly concerned with styling it—if you asked Nick, pulling a brush through your hair was for special occasions. His hair would fall how it fell and that was up to nobody but his pillow, which was, all thing considered, a pretty decent stylist. But that way of life wasn’t for Seiji. No sir. But for the last month and a half? It had gotten out of control. Not that any amount of time spent fixing hair in front of a mirror could change anything.

Yeah, Nick knew that Seiji liked him. And Nick hated it. The bastard thought he was so pathetic a fencer that he wasn’t even worth so much as a spare thought on the strip. Seiji wouldn’t even consider him as a rival. It was so far out of his realm of possibilities that, instead, he saw Nick as _boyfriend material._ You didn’t date a guy you thought could be better than you. At least, Seiji Katayama would never date that guy. He was too competitive and self-involved to be able to like someone that was a serious threat. Which meant Nick was so low on his list of worries that he was safe to crush on. It pissed Nick off. So he was none too gentle with Seiji’s feelings. Not that Seiji had ever made any indication of wanting to tell Nick how he felt. Neither did he realize Nick could see right through him. He thought it was a secret. And Nick wasn’t about to let on that he knew. He wasn’t _that_ much of an asshole. But he _was_ just enough of an asshole to poke fun, ‘accidentally,’ of Seiji’s behavior. Like the mirror time. He wanted Seiji to see him as a rival, not a boyfriend. But while he was working on his fencing so that he _could_ be a rival, he’d settle for making Seiji’s feelings disappear. That way, Seiji would be ready for it when Nick became a threat.

His plan to dissuade Seiji’s affection meant he engaged in slighter meaner than necessary banter. And made sure to piss off Seiji in every way he could. It was bound to turn Seiji off him, eventually. If he just kept it up long enough. And behaved badly enough.

So when Seiji stood in front of him, arm gesturing towards the bathroom behind him, insisting Nick wipe up the splashed water, he couldn't help it. He planted a hand on Seiji’s chest, barely registered the hard muscles under the soft shirt, and gave a hearty shove.

Seiji stumbled backward, face a mask of incredulous disbelief. As his head fell back and his balance tipped beyond recovery, Nick lurched forward. He didn't want Seiji to get hurt, had only meant to shove him onto the wet tile. But now visions of Seiji’s head cracking against the counter with a sickening thud and thick blood matting into his pristine hair were flashing in Nick’s mind. He'd have caught Seiji, he wasn’t about to let the guy fall flat on his back. Not like this. But Seiji saved himself, hands braced with white knuckles against the counter.

Seiji’s head snapped back to attention and Nick dropped his outstretched hand. Seiji was _pissed. _Way beyond any anger Nick had seen from him before. His face was wild and contorted into a primal snarl of rage, his cheeks flushed with anger.

“Oops?” Nick said, backing up a step. Seiji launched himself off the counter and landed against Nick, taking handfuls of his collar as he hauled him up and close to his face. Nick thought he might literally get his head bitten off.

“If you _ever_ shove me again, I will make you regret it,” Seiji’s voice was an animalistic thing and all Nick could do was nod. One of Seiji’s hands fell away from Nick’s shirt and he was pretty sure he was about to be hit. The look in Seiji’s eyes definitely suggested as much. But then the not-quite-formed fist diverted and swept through his hair instead. Nick stared at him, amazed. He'd never seen Seiji ruin his neatly combed hair before. It was a bigger indication of his distress than even a punch would have been. “And now,” Seiji said, irate but with a resigned quality to his voice instead of a savage one, “I've got wet socks.” And he let Nick go.

Nick didn't really mean to keep staring. He was just stunned and as a result, he stood there stupidly, watching as Seiji bent slightly and brought up a foot to peel off an impossibly white ankle sock. _Should I say sorry?_ Nick wondered as Seiji replaced his foot on the floor and picked up the other one. But this time he glanced up and saw Nick watching him. He went suddenly still, frozen with a finger hooked in the heel of his sock and eyes locked on Nick’s. Quickly, his eyes averted and his head ducked, showing Nick that his ears—previously untouched by the furious color on his face—were now turning pink. Nick laughed.

“Dude, it's just socks, what are you getting all shy for?” That was a step too far. Seiji yanked off his sock and stood tall. There was a blur of motion and something wet hit him right in the face. “Hey!” Nick yelled in alarm, shucking the sock off him.

Nick was ready to retaliate but then he saw Seiji, still red and with a now heaving chest, standing there with the other sock clutched so tight in his fist it was dripping water onto the floor. He looked mad as all hell. But also upset. In…other ways. And Nick knew he probably deserved that sock to his face. His conscious tried to feel bad for all he'd said and done tonight. He stomped it down and threw the sock back at Seiji’s bare feet.

_Maybe now he'll get the hint and stop seeing me as someone he could date_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you all passed kindergarten because we’ve got ourselves an AB pattern babeyy


	3. Chapter 3

The worst thing about this was there were tons of people that Seiji could have caught feelings for. Any one of them would have been pleased to have his affections, would have welcomed them gladly and Seiji wouldn't be stuck pining after a messy jerk like Nicholas. In fact, it bothered him that he was crushing at all. First of all, what a terrible word: _crush. _It was too middle school. And furthermore, he didn't need the distraction of romance. But here he was, watching Nicholas across the cafeteria and wishing there was any reason at all to go join him. There wasn't.

Nor was there any reason to interact during school. But that was probably for the best, considering the events of last night. It amazed him that he still had any fond feelings for Nicholas after that. He hadn't even mopped up the floor.

“Do you mind if I sit?”

Seiji jerked away from his previous occupation—staring at Nicholas—and looked up to see Kally smiling and gesturing to a seat at Seiji’s empty table.

“I'm not saving it,” he offered, which was good enough for Kally. It was irregular for Kally to be anywhere without Tanner and they generally sat with Harvard and Aiden. “Why?” He asked. It was probably rude but he didn't appreciate false pretenses.

“I thought you could use some company,” Kally shrugged, opening his orange juice mildly. Everything Kally did was mild and tame and steady. Seiji wasn’t sure what to make of him, honestly. He was the sort to always have a Band-Aid in his pocket in case anyone needed it. The mediator. He'd gotten between Seiji and Nicholas several times before.

“I appreciate the sentiment but I'm fine.”

“I'm sure you are but I'd still like to sit here if you don't mind.”

“Alright,” Seiji agreed. He wouldn’t banish Kally. But he didn't encourage him by striking up conversation either.

“I keep telling Harvard and Aiden that they should wrangle you newbies into sitting with them. But you know Aiden, he's got his people and he doesn't like expanding the circle. But I think you all need to become each other's people now.”

“It would be a crowded table,” Seiji said with distaste.

“When you're used to a table of one, I guess it might seem that way.”

Seiji didn't have an answer for that so he didn't give one. They continued eating in silence and they'd likely remain in silence for the duration of breakfast. But, eventually, something in the cafeteria made Seiji speak.

“Tanner looks like he might kill that guy,” he observed. “And you're not there to stop him.”

“He can manage,” Kally sighed as if in exasperation but he wore his emotions unguarded and Seiji saw the fondness behind his eyes as he watched Tanner grab the kid. “I've told him a million times not to balance his juice on the edge like that. Four years and you'd think he'd learn. He hasn't so far. And his juice gets knocked over pretty consistently, at least once a week.”

“He seems like a lot of trouble,” Seiji said, to which Kally laughed. “Why do you like him?”

“I like taking care of people and Tanner needs someone to rein him in all the time. It works.” Kally turned his smile on Seiji. “Actually, there're tons of reasons. But I doubt you want to hear them all.”

“Probably not,” Seiji admitted.

Kally really did like taking care of people and over the next week, it became abundantly clear that he now fully intended to take care of Seiji too. He'd eat meals at Seiji’s island of a table for at least one meal a day, and he’d come check in on him after fights with Nicholas. Seiji wasn't sure what to do with it. So he mostly ignored it, figuring that if Kally really wanted to keep him company, he could suffer the consequences.

It wasn't until the second week of Kally adopting him as a friend that he had any reason to actively dislike it. It was a Wednesday evening and everyone was gathered into Kally’s room raiding a care package. Seiji wouldn't have come but he'd been specifically dragged—literally dragged, by the wrist—into Kally’s room by the man himself. And then the door had closed and was blocked with about three different people-shaped obstacles and Seiji was trapped.

He wasn't particularly interested in any of the goodies Kally’s moms had sent so he shuffled into a relatively empty corner of the room.

A squeak near his shoulder made him look down in alarm to see two bobbing brown pigtails. He vaguely recognized this boy. He'd fenced him but he hadn't made a very deep impression on Seiji. The other reason Seiji knew this boy was because he seemed to be Nicholas’s closest friend and he'd often see them together.

“Hi,” the boy said, unnaturally high when he saw Seiji looking at him.

“Hello,” Seiji returned. He found this part tedious and, frankly, odd. Talking with the people who admired him, idolized him, in some cases. What were you meant to do with affection from a stranger? They all thought they knew Seiji but they didn't and he didn't mean to be rude to them, he just didn't _understand _it. But the boy was looking up at him with stars in his eyes and Seiji felt like he owed this person something. “I'm sorry, but I've forgotten your name.”

“Oh! That's okay, it's a pretty forgettable name, nothing special like Seiji, which has such a nice ring to it, it sounds so—,” Seiji wasn't sure if he was making a face or if the boy had realized he was rambling. “Bobby. It's Bobby. I mean, _I'm _Bobby. We've met before, but it's nice to meet you again!”

“Indeed. I'll remember your name this time, it suits you.” And, for some reason, this comment made Bobby’s entire face light up alarmingly red.

“Th-thanks!” He stammered.

A hand snapped out and grabbed Bobby’s arm then, as he stumbled backward, a matching hand—and the arm attached to it—looped protectively around Bobby’s chest.

“You're not bullying Bobby, are you?” Nicholas asked. Seiji couldn't believe it was a serious accusation, but it seemed to be.

“I am not,” he said. “Look at him,” he gestured to Bobby’s flushed face. “He's happy.” Nicholas was still glaring at him as though he’d done something despicable.

“Come on, Bobby, let's go over there,” and he started hauling the shorter boy away

“But Nick!” Bobby was trying to get free of Nicholas but his efforts were fruitless. So he craned his head around helplessly. “Bye Seiji, it was fun talking to you!” Seiji waved in a returned goodbye.

He was relieved to be done with the minutia of social niceties but his chest clenched painfully as he watched Nicholas navigate through the room with Bobby held securely under his arm. Seiji hated that he wished it was _him _under that arm_. _


	4. Chapter 4

“Nick, you're the worst!” Bobby was screeching. “I was talking to Seiji! He said my name suits me! And you _pulled me away!_” He was nearing hysteria now.

“You're fine,” Nick dismissed. “Trust me, I was doing you a favor. Once you get to know him, Seiji is the worst.”

“What are you talking about? He's beautiful and dreamy and so well-mannered,” Bobby could go on for hours. Nick knew from experience. So he cut it off before Bobby really got into it.

“I'll get you frozen yogurt if you shut up about him,” Nick offered. Bobby pouted, considered, then sighed.

“Fine. But I don't see what your problem is with him.”

“My problem is that he's a stuck up prick and he doesn't recognize me as a worthy opponent. Even though I made it on the team, same as him!”

“But why did you have to drag _me_ away from him? I _like_ being near him even if you don’t.”

Nick tried not to betray any guilt. The reason he'd done it, of course, was to discourage Seiji's persisting feelings. But he couldn't tell Bobby any of that. He wouldn't understand. And he'd scold Nick for getting so intentionally nasty when he knew how Seiji felt. It was kind of dickish of him, he fully acknowledged that. But it was Seiji's fault for thinking he was weak and pathetic.

“Wanna sneak out and get froyo right now?”

“You know I can't say no to that. But I'm not done sulking about this.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.”

They were halfway down the hall when they heard Seiji's name. Curious, they both stopped, perfectly in unison. Nick glanced at Bobby, who nodded. Looked like they were about to do some eavesdropping.

Carefully, they snuck to the cracked open door to Harvard and Aiden's room. But Aiden was down the hall, antagonizing Tanner—an accusation of a perm had been dropped. So it wasn't Aiden's voice they heard, but Kally’s.

“…thinks so too, she must have mentioned it to you. He just isolates himself from everyone. It worries me.”

“Forcing him to spend time with us won't fix anything,” Harvard answered. “He’ll withdraw more. You can't make him want to be friends with everyone by dragging him along everywhere.”

“You're right. _I_ can't.”

A pause.

“Ah.”

“Coach knows _that_ too.”

“She's impossibly clever,” Harvard laughed. “But that doesn't help us much. We just have to let him do things at his own pace for now and hope for the best.”

“It's not healthy, being a minor celebrity. Seiji’s not like Aiden. And he doesn't have a _you_, either. I just don't want him to be alone.”

“You're doing what you can, Kally. It's not your job to make everyone happy. And, for what it's worth, I think he's really starting to warm up to you.”

“Really?”

“Really. Now we should get back to your room before they all do something stupid.”

Bobby and Nick bolted down the hall and didn't stop running until they were far on their way down the stairs, hands clasped together and chests heaving with unspent laughter.

“We were almost found out!” Bobby finally exploded into giggles when they were out in the cool evening air. Nick laughed along and they spent the walk talking about their near escape.

“Were you listening to Kally?” Bobby asked after he’d finally decided on his flavor for tonight.

“Duh. We were eavesdropping. Listening is what you _do_ when you're eavesdropping.”

“Yeah but you're stupid.”

“I'm—? That's fucking rude,” Nick said, leaning across the tiny round table to pull at a pigtail playfully. Bobby giggled again.

“It's just that…it sounds like Seiji has a crush.”

“What?” Nick froze with a spoonful of chocolate goodness partway to his mouth. “How'd you get _that?_”

“The way they were talking. Like Kally can't get through Seiji’s walls but someone else _can_. Sounds like a crush to me.”

“Oh.” Had they noticed like Nick had, then? That Seiji liked him? He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He hoped they hadn't noticed that _he_ knew. Or that he was chasing away the feelings with a vengeance.

“I wonder who it is,” Bobby said, planting his chin in a hand and blowing a stray lock of hair from his eyes. “God I wish it were me. But I can't even pretend. He only learned my name tonight.”

“Why would you want him crushing on you anyway?” Nick asked, pulling a disgusted face. Bobby kicked him under the table.

“I know. It's dumb. I don't even know him. I don't even like him in a dating way. But,” Bobby went starry-eyed, “can you imagine? Seiji Katayama, the amazing, impossible, beautiful _Seiji Katayama_ liking you? Out of all the people in the world? You'd have to be something extra special to get his interest at all. I'm so jealous of whoever it is.”

Conversation moved on when Nick proved an unenthusiastic partner for sleuthing out The Crush. But as they finished their bowls, Nick couldn't stop thinking about what Bobby had said. He'd never thought of it in that way. As an honor to hold Seiji’s affection.

But, thinking on it, Nick didn't know of a single other person Seiji liked literally at all. And somehow, for some reason, he'd gotten a crush on _Nick_.

When he thought of it like that, it didn't feel too bad on the ego.

* * *

Nick returned to his room before curfew even hit. And he found Seiji in the bathroom, door open, in front of the mirror. Readjusting his hair. He must have gotten preoccupied with it, though, since his button-down pajama shirt was still neatly folded on the counter next to him.

Seiji noticed Nick's attention in the reflection and spun away from the mirror, jerking his hand away from his hair like he was a kid trying to hide scissors and a new haircut from his mom. It occurred to Nick to make some sort of snide remark but Seiji looked like he expected it—like he was bracing himself against it—and suddenly Nick felt like a huge asshole.

“Hey,” he said and the word fell awkward and flat between them. But he couldn't think of anything else to say so he left it at that. Seiji stared at him, not believing he wasn't going to take the shot. His eyes crinkled in confusion and Nick felt like an even bigger asshole.

He didn't want Seiji to like him. He wanted Seiji to notice him and take him seriously as a fencer. But it was kind of incredible that Seiji had pretty much offered up his heart to Nick—not that Seiji knew he had. He didn't think Nick knew. Seiji wasn't the type to do friends or to tolerate other people and here Nick was being mean and rotten to him even though he was the one person Seiji actually liked. _Because _he was that one person. How shitty was that?

“Well, g’night,” Nick mumbled, embarrassed as well as guilty now. Seiji opened his mouth but no words came out. Speechless. He'd made Seiji speechless by not being a dick to him. _Wow, _Nick thought, _Bobby’s right, I’m kind of the worst. _He started turning away, meaning to slide behind the duck curtain and change into his pajamas too when he caught movement from the corner of his eye and couldn't help but watch.

Seiji had turned away also and, upon seeing his reflection in the mirror, he finally noticed the very obvious lack of shirt covering his chest. Seiji colored red but it was a prettier shade than the one that had overtaken him in that same bathroom almost two weeks ago. It flushed over his exposed chest, crept up his neck, and settled all across his face. His eyes flicked to Nick's in the mirror and Nick hurriedly looked away, practically diving behind the curtain as he heard the rustle of cloth that had to be Seiji pulling on his shirt.

How the fuck had Nick not realized before how singularly _insane_ it was that he, Nicholas “Zero” Cox, could produce such a sight as that out of Seiji freaking Katayama?


	5. Chapter 5

Something was wrong. _Very_ wrong. Nicholas was being nice. Not simply civil. Not even just pleasant. _Nice. _Wholly and undeniably kind where he would previously have been disagreeable if not entirely awful.

The sudden decrease in mocking and escalation of fights—which Seiji still kept trying to start—had been strange enough. But then, last night, Seiji had needed the bathroom after Nicholas was out of the shower. And the floor had been completely dry. The mirror, too, had been wiped clean of steam with the little squeegee Seiji kept under the sink. Seiji hadn't been able to help a confused glance over towards Nicholas but he’d been minding his own business across the room without giving any indication that he'd exhibited any uncharacteristic behaviors at all.

Really, walking into a pristine bathroom shouldn’t make Seiji’s heart flutter so much. But it did.

It was all very strange and unusual and terribly encouraging for his feelings. They’d gotten worse—perhaps they’d always been this bad but he hadn’t had the opportunity to appreciate it fully until now. Because Nicholas hadn’t smiled at him in ages, unless taking amusement in whatever irritation he was causing Seiji. He hadn’t acknowledged or spoken to Seiji unless to antagonize him. But now…now, Nicholas would mumble a good morning and Seiji’s heart would skip a beat. He’d catch Seiji’s eye and offer a smile and Seiji would feel like he was melting. Nicholas would exchange a few words—benign and meaningless words—with him and Seiji would think about it all day.

It wasn’t fair. It was absolutely not fair for Nicholas to give him hope like this. Because that was the natural—deranged, but natural—conclusion to come to, wasn’t it? That Nicholas might like him? Obviously, that wasn’t the case. But there _was_ a drastic change in behavior. And it had to mean something. Even if it was only that Nicholas had decided to grow up a little.

“…Seiji?”

Seiji dragged himself out of his thoughts and looked up at the voice. He was pretty sure this wasn't the first time he'd been called. _Christ, Nicholas is really doing a number on my mind. _

“Nicholas?” Seiji wasn't sure he actually _had_ reemerged from his thoughts because there was no way Nicholas was actually standing here at _his_ table and calling his name while he ate a quiet dinner. Kally always sat with Tanner for dinner—actually, they'd often go out to eat in the evenings. So Seiji had not expected company at all and to find Nicholas here was something of a shock.

“Yeah, hi,” Nicholas smiled, politely ignoring Seiji's surprise. Since when was Nicholas polite? Especially to him? “So I was wondering if you'd stop snubbing everyone and come eat with us.”

“What?” Seiji wasn't usually so easily confused but tonight he felt like he was missing something. Was it a prank? How _could _it be a prank? But why else would Nicholas suggest they eat together?

“I thought we could sit with Bobby. I owe him since I dragged him away from you back in Kally’s room.” That made more sense, at least. Bobby had coerced Nicholas into this. And a wash of relief hit him as he understood. That night in Kally’s room…it was after that that Nicholas had shaped up. Bobby must have told Nicholas off. _That_ was why he was being so oddly nice. No other reason.

“I'm already sitting here,” Seiji said, even though he knew he shouldn't fight the invitation. Knew it would discourage another one from being extended. And didn't he want to be with Nicholas? But, honestly, being near Nicholas was as tedious, annoying, and nerve-racking as it was anything else.

“But your food’s over at _that _table,” Nicholas nodded toward a table with Bobby and a tall guy.

“It is not.”

“It is now.” And he grabbed Seiji’s tray before he disappeared through tables, weaving his way over to the one he'd indicated before.

“Nicholas!” Seiji called in a delayed reaction that Nicholas was too far gone to hear. He stared after his pilfered tray and the boy that had pilfered it, stunned, until it sunk in. And there wasn't much of a choice if he wanted to eat.

Seiji ignored Nicholas's goofy grin as he sat down in the seat he had apparently been assigned. He picked up his fork again and tried not to look at Nicholas or give him the satisfaction of looking at all perturbed. Though he was. Entirely.

“The team’s doing really well this season,” Bobby said. Seiji was unclear if this was directed at him or not and glanced up to find Bobby’s huge brown eyes on him.

”Yes,” Seiji agreed. “Considering the circumstances, Harvard’s done impressively well configuring us in our matches.”

“Circumstances?” Bobby asked.

“Aiden is unreliable, which means the team reserve is heavily relied upon. However, we have two reserves instead of one. Which adds for more variability and confusion. But, as I said, Harvard has used this to our advantage when putting our team together for the matches Aiden misses.”

“Harvard is way cool, isn't he?” Bobby asked in a dazzled tone. Seiji liked that Bobby went moony-eyed over other people too. It made him feel less conspicuous.

“He's a good captain,” Seiji admitted easily. He had respect for Harvard; Seiji knew he couldn't have wrangled the team into something half as functional as Harvard had.

“Oh!” Bobby yelped suddenly, then clapped hands over his mouth. Seiji wasn't sure what that was about and the tall boy next to Bobby was just as confused. But comprehension clicked in Nicholas’s eyes and he swatted Bobby's shoulder with a frown that Seiji usually saw when Nicholas watched _him_. He didn't know what Bobby had done to earn it when Seiji hadn't seen it for days.

“Cut it out,” Nicholas said.

“But—,” Bobby was staring at Seiji with something different than his usual starstruck wonder and adoration.

“Don't be weird.”

Ironic, since Nicholas was being far weirder.

* * *

“Nick, take a buddy!” Harvard leaned out of the bus’s window to shout after Nicholas, already well on his way to the little gas station.

“Do I have to?” Nicholas’s voice called back.

“Yes! Who do you want?”

“Send out Seiji if you really think I can't go pee alone.”

Oh, no. Seiji would not be playing the part of bathroom buddy. Not today. Not ever.

Harvard turned from the window, leveling his gaze on Seiji. “You're up,” he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder toward the door. “Get to it.”

“Harvard—,”

“No buts. Off you go.”

Seiji seethed as he strode briskly down the aisle and off the bus. Why did they have to travel in pairs? They weren't children. And it was broad daylight. Seiji highly doubted anything could go wrong in the short time Nicholas was by himself. And if it was bad enough to get him into trouble, how would a buddy help? And why had Nicholas picked _him_ to stand outside the bathrooms and stare at the spinning rack of name-tag keychains while he used the toilet?

“Finding your name?” Nicholas asked, popping up right behind Seiji at an unnerving distance. Caught off guard, he felt something like panic bubbling in his stomach. So he turned away from Nicholas and made to walk down a snack aisle. “Any luck?”

“Finding my name? Of course not. What gas station has _Seiji_ on a souvenir keychain?”

“They always have my name. Sometimes they have it twice,” he held out two fingers, like Seiji needed the visual cue to understand the quantity. “Nicholas _and _Nick. You can borrow one if you'd like.”

“Why would I—? It's _your_ name, it would do me absolutely no good to have it.”

“Fair point,” Nicholas laughed. “Unless it was like a tag.” Seiji _knew_ Nicholas wasn't implying he was some sort of house cat. He couldn't be that stupid. “You know, ’if found, return to Nick.’” His stupidity was a black hole, a true mystery as to how something so vast could possibly exist.

“You're the one Harvard thought would get lost,” Seiji pointed out. “Besides, there wasn't a Nick. Only a Nicky.”

“Hey, you only get to call me that if we're dating,” Nicholas winked before bursting into laughter.

“I'm going back to the bus and if you don't follow me, I'll tell Harvard you fell in the toilet and drowned.” Nicholas followed, still laughing. And he was probably close enough to distinguish Seiji's blush.

It was this new friendly thing Nicholas was pulling. It was making it incredibly hard to hide his feelings. Especially since Seiji’s face was so keen on betraying him over every little comment.


	6. Chapter 6

Nick had to admit that there was something to this. Seiji slammed into a seat on the bus and made sure to sit in the middle of the bench so Nick couldn't follow. Nick barely kept in another snicker. God, did he really think Nick didn't know? He was so obvious. His face when Nick had said that line about dating—priceless!

Nick slid into the seat behind Seiji, just in case the mood to strike came again. It was only an hour to their match but they'd been forced to stop because Coach had wanted a KitKat and what Coach wanted, Coach got. Nick really admired that woman. He also feared her a healthy amount.

Biding his time, Nick scrolled through his phone for a bit, but Harvard beat him to any more harassment of Seiji. He muscled right in next to Seiji. Not that it took much, Nick observes through the reflection of the thick-glassed window by Seiji's seat. He scooted right over when he noticed Harvard's intention to sit next to him.

With a scowl, Nick gave the seat in front of him a little jab with his knee, right where Seiji was. What a boot-licker. It was only lucky Bobby wasn't here. He'd probably take that as proof of his stupid theory. He'd gotten it in his head since dinner a couple nights ago that Seiji’s crush was on Harvard.

Which was wrong.

Obviously.

Because Seiji liked Nick. Not Harvard.

But Bobby had no way of knowing that and had taken the fact that Seiji didn't hate Harvard to mean that he _liked_ him. The way he’d made room for Harvard on his bench would be taken as highly suspect. Because Seiji Katayama yielded to no one.

Nick slunk down in his seat, not adjusting the way his knees pressed into the back of Seiji’s. He listened in for a bit but they weren't talking about anything interesting. Tactics and shit. Nicholas would get his own briefing. And then they'd do a team huddle before the first match. So there was no reason to listen to this one too. But snippets of conversation still drifted into his wandering mind.

“Thank you for all your hard work, Seiji,” Harvard was saying and Nick could have gagged. “You've made a great addition to the team this year and I think we can go far together. And I'm proud of you for making an effort with the guys, I know teams aren't usually your thing.” If Nick had said it, it would have come out as insulting or patronizing. But Harvard said it with a hearty and genuine affection, like he really _was _proud and actually gave a damn if Seiji got along with the team or not.

Seiji gave a startled and unexpected little laugh, a manifestation of awkward abashment. “Thank you, Harvard,” he said, and Harvard chucked him on the shoulder before standing and making his way back to Aiden.

Seiji looked much too pleased with himself, a tiny smile on his lips and a little flush, too. Nothing compared to what Nick could produce in him but more than was typical of Seiji. He turned to look out the window but got distracted with his own pretty face. _Pompous, preening peacock_, Nick thought unkindly as Seiji smoothed his hair and frowned at his reflection.

Nick pulled out his phone and texted Bobby: _new theory about The Crush. I've thought about it and the only answer is that it's him. He's in love with himself. _

* * *

Nick didn't get to fence, which was a bummer, but he was used to it. He'd known it was unlikely he'd be able to today, since Aiden had actually come and usually that meant he'd stay for the tournament. Unless he found something more interesting. But it didn't look like any of the guys here were appealing enough to lure him away, so Nick and Eugene were both stuck on the bench.

“Seiji's scary good,” Eugene said after his opponent was sent off the strip with his tail between his legs. Seiji calmly returned to Harvard and Coach Williams, who were both standing closer than he and Eugene had bothered. They exchanged some words and Seiji nodded, face serious and stern. And Nick wondered if he'd hallucinated all the blushes and confused, longing looks. Because that boy there, the one talking with Coach like he was being debriefed on a war mission? That boy didn't seem capable of feelings.

“Seiji’s just scary,” Nick said. Eugene laughed.

“That's true. I feel like he hates me. Every time I accidentally catch his eyes it's like I've offended him, you feel?” Not that Eugene let that deter him from talking happily at Seiji about protein shakes and exercise regimes.

“Yeah, but I think that's just what he's like,” Nick said, still watching Seiji’s face closely, searching for any sign of the _other _Seiji Katayama. The one that wasn't so distant and impenetrable.

“You sure? I think he hates everyone as a baseline.”

“Maybe he does,” Nick had to admit Seiji started off with a leaning towards _dislike_ for anyone that spoke to him. “But you only get put in the _hate_ category if you've pissed him off.”

“Like you?”

“What're you talking about? Seiji loves me.”

“Yeah and I'm a mermaid.” Eugene snorted. And it was meant as a joke so it shouldn't make Nick frown. But he frowned anyway. Was it so impossible to think Seiji liked him? It was the truth, so why did Eugene laugh about it and why did Bobby see romance between Seiji and Harvard instead of Seiji and him? Not that there was any romance. Romance required feelings on both ends.

“For real, he's just got resting bitch face like nobody's business. And he's rude and abrasive. And he's terrible to have a conversation with. And he's way too full of himself. And, basically, he's the worst. But I don't think he hates you. I think his standard _you are an ant to me, step aside or be squished_ look is just a way to scare people off so he doesn't have to deal with them.”

Eugene gave him a funny look. “Okay, bro. But I don't know if that's any better than a personal vendetta.”

“You could always try for one,” Nick said, a smile taking him. “Just keep talking to him enough and eventually he'll either hate you or not hate you. And who knows? Maybe you'll like him.”

“That's the last thing I need,” Eugene said with an ominous chuckle. “Can you imagine getting it for Seiji? You'd be signing up for a world of hurt.”

“Don't even think about,” Aiden chimed in, causing alarm to both Eugene and Nick. Aiden squeezed in on the bench next to them. “He’s good looking, sure, but is it worth it?”

“He's not so bad,” Nick said but he was laughing. It was rich of _Aiden_ to question the validity of falling for someone, considering the trail of broken hearts he'd left behind.

“He's completely emotionally stunted,” Aiden continued. “You'd be stuck with a lot of baggage if you managed to get past his spiky exterior.”

“To what?” Nick heard himself saying, “His spiky _interior_?”

“Aiden, you're up,” Seiji said from the side of the bench, right over Aiden. “Harvard’s stressed because you disappeared, you'd better go let him know he won't need to substitute one of our reserves last minute.”

“Oh, didn't see you there,” Aiden said, smiling. “Thank you, Seiji.” And as Aiden traipsed off to find Harvard and fence the captain from the other team, Seiji made quickly to a side door.

“Think he hates us now?” Eugene asked, also eyeing the door Seiji had pushed through. _Shit. _Nick stood.

“I'll be right back.”

“You really think that's a good idea? Going after him?”

Nick ignored Eugene and hurried through the door, looking up and down the hall for any sign of Seiji. He spotted the heel of a blue sneaker disappearing around a corner and bolted for it, making such a commotion that by the time he’d rounded the corner, Seiji had turned to see the source of the noise. His eyes were wide and grew wider when Nick grabbed for his arm, thinking only to stop him from going farther but not thinking it through beyond that. Seiji looked down at Nick’s hand, then back to his face, and his lip curled in distaste.

“Can I help you?”

“Uh…” It occurred to Nick that he couldn't really apologize to Seiji for whatever he'd overheard. _Sorry I said you'd be awful to date, I'm sure you'd be a good boyfriend and all, I just don't want you to be _my _boyfriend? _He couldn't say that. But he really wished he'd kept his mouth shut now. “The guys and I…we were only joking around just now.”

“How noble of you to chase me down to say so, Nicholas, but I don't particularly care what any of you think about dating me.” He brushed Nick’s hand off with a casual disinterest and Nick wondered if this was the final straw. Seiji looked irritated and inconvenienced but not upset. Maybe he was past getting upset over Nick now. Maybe his feelings had finally been scrubbed away. Somehow, it made Nick feel a little regretful.

“I'm still sorry,” he offered lamely as Seiji started to turn away. “It was mean of us to talk like that. Friends aren't supposed to say shitty things about each other. So, I'm really sorry about it, okay?”

“Friends?” Seiji asked, a bitterness to the word, whereas the last time Nick had heard him say it he'd been nothing but surprised.

“Yeah, I said it before, didn't I? We're friends.”

“You haven't been treating me like a friend for the last month and then some,” Seiji said dryly and Nick winced.

“You're right. I haven't. Can I try again?”


	7. Chapter 7

“Can I try again?” Nicholas asked, sheepish and hopeful and completely baffling. Seiji didn't understand what had changed. What _kept_ changing. Sometimes Nicholas was a terror but sometimes he was this. Open and honest and sweet and it was confusing.

“I don't appreciate gossip,” Seiji said. “If you've got a problem with me, say it to my face next time.”

“I will!” Nicholas said and he was smiling. Then it faltered. “I mean, I won't! I won't badmouth you again.”

“I somehow doubt that.”

“No, for real, I'll be nice.”

_Why?_ Seiji wanted to ask. _Why now? Why not before?_ But he took his small victory.

“Where are you going?” Nicholas asked when he continued down the hall.

“To the bathroom,” Seiji said. And it had been his intention, just not because he'd needed to use its facilities. But he'd be damned if he let Nicholas know his comment had made him want to seek out solitude.

“Do you know where it is?” Nicholas was following him now.

“I'm sure I can find it,” Seiji told him. “You can go back to your bench now, I'll manage.”

“Buddy system, remember?” Nicholas’s smile was huge and annoying.

“I don't need a buddy.”

“But Harvard would be disappointed if you didn't follow the rules.” The way Nicholas said _Harvard_ made Seiji consider him. His face was caught up in a scowl. It didn't suit him. And Seiji wasn't sure why it was there.

“I'm almost positive it's only _you_ Harvard doesn't trust to run about alone.”

“No way, Eugene's _just_ as stupid as I am, Harvard can't trust him either.”

“Point taken.”

“And Aiden isn't trustworthy either.”

“I suspect Harvard has given up on containing Aiden. However, I’m perfectly responsible and won't cause any trouble if left alone.”

“Sure you won't. Unless you run into a fencer from another team and get into it with them.”

“I would not,” Seiji protested.

“Man, I don't know who you think you're fooling because you start shit all the time with the people you've just destroyed on the strip.”

“Do I?”

“Uh, yeah. Big time.”

“Good to know.” It was a lost cause, getting Nicholas to return to the matches. They were already nearing the bathroom and Nicholas settled down outside the doors.

Seiji had no real need to be here, so he migrated over to the sinks to splash some water on his face, which was as sweat-stained as it always was after fencing. He frowned at his reflection, tried to counteract the heat still in his cheeks with the cool water. His hair was more or less a lost cause but he raked fingers through it anyway.

Not that it mattered how it looked. Nicholas wouldn't notice. At least not in the way Seiji ever wanted. But it was habit, no matter how _spiky _his interior was, he couldn't help but want to look put together in front of Nicholas.

“You're so full of shit,” Nicholas said first thing when Seiji emerged from the bathroom, feeling refreshed and glad for the visit.

“I thought you were being nice from now on,” Seiji told him archly, not breaking stride to wait for Nicholas to scramble to his feet and catch up.

“Yeah, but this is ridiculous,” Nicholas said with a flair of his hand towards Seiji’s face. Seiji quickened his step. _So much for friends_, he thought resentfully. But had he really expected that to last? Nicholas couldn't help it. It was like a compulsion of his to make fun of Seiji whenever he could. “I mean, you were just under a mask and that match wasn't short either. But a trip to the bathroom and you look like you're off to a fucking photoshoot.”

Oh.

That was…not what he'd been expecting to hear. It was almost a compliment. He wasn't at all sure how to respond to it. It was the bus all over again when Harvard had paid him a compliment on his contribution to the team. He knew he was a good fencer. Obviously. But he hadn't expected Harvard to recognize him for it. At this point, his skill was a given. Coach Dmytro talked only of how it could be improved. And Coach Williams urged him to try harder to collaborate with the team. But Harvard hadn't offered any criticisms in that moment. Just a sincere compliment that left him floundering with how to react. Because Harvard wasn't one of the boys that gushed over him and his praise meant more. Just like Nicholas was far from one of his admirers, so his strange remark felt like more honest of a compliment than any of the ones he'd received from people like Bobby.

When they were back in the gym, Seiji fully expected Nicholas to duck away back to the bench with Eugene. But he followed Seiji to stand next to Coach Williams and Harvard.

“What'd we miss?” Nicholas asked, and Harvard only raised an eyebrow at his presence by the strip before giving a rundown of Aiden’s match. The boy himself was gone but he'd won before disappearing again. His opponent, the captain of Green Valley’s fencing team, was also missing.

It was Harvard next and Aiden appeared to watch it with them, looking a little rumpled. Seiji truly didn't understand what was so fun about running off with every attractive boy to be found but he wasn't in any position to criticize Aiden’s love life. He'd made far worse decisions in that department, after all. But, Seiji thought as his gaze shifted momentarily to Nicholas while he talked intently with Coach Williams, things were looking up. Nicholas seemed to be well and truly finished with his period of malice.

As if to confirm this, Nicholas caught his gaze and offered a bright smile.

* * *

Following the trip to Green Valley High, Seiji found himself being pulled headfirst into all sorts of social niceties he'd formerly avoided. An example of this was how Nicholas had taken to finding him at meals and dragging him along to whichever table he planned on eating at. Seiji’s favorite outcome was when Nicholas sat down with him instead of making him move anywhere else. Seiji’s favorite effects of this outcome include not being expected to talk to anyone else and, embarrassing though it was to admit, holding Nicholas’s undivided attention. Because his attention had been pleasant lately. More than pleasant.

“You should come to the library with us sometime,” Nicholas said, dropping his lunch tray next to Seiji’s with a clatter. Seiji hid his smile as Nicholas took a seat. It looked like he'd be getting things his way for this meal.

“The library? Why?”

“We've got a fun little study group,” Nicholas said, then froze as a look of mild horror overtook his face. “Oh god. Please tell me I didn't just say that. _Fun little study group?_ This school is ruining me. I'm like a boring old granny now.”

“Next you'll be inviting me to book club, luring me in with lemon bars and iced tea.”

“Is that the trick to luring you places?” Nicholas asked with a laugh.

“Not quite,” Seiji admitted. Lemon bars were far from his favorite indulgence. And Nicholas hardly needed to _lure_ him anywhere. He went most places without protest when Nicholas asked him to. The thought gave him pause. He turned it over in his head but found it entirely true. _I can't let that be, _Seiji thought. It was a little desperate, wasn't it?

“So, what do you say? Study party in the library?”

“I do better studying alone,” Seiji said. “Without the noise and…other distinctions.” Honestly, that was probably true. He didn't ever seem to get much of anything done when he was too near Nicholas. It was like his ability to think flew out the nearest window.

“Not a study party sort of guy?”

“No.”

“What about a study date, then?” Nicholas asked and Seiji almost spat out the swig of water he'd just taken. He avoided it but ended up in a terrible coughing fit. At least it might offer a convenient excuse for his red face. “You okay? You're not like choking or anything are you?” Nicholas asked worriedly. Seiji shook his head.

“No,” but he wished he _was _choking. It would be a handy way out of this conversation.

Now that the surprise of Seiji’s spluttering had worn off, Nicholas seemed to realize his poor choice of words. He went a bit red, which was a rare thing to see on him unless it was a flush of happiness. And this was most definitely a flush of embarrassment instead.

“I didn't mean—,” he said, raising a hand and gesturing as if he could erase what he'd said. “It's just a saying. I wasn't—asking you out or anything.”

“Thank you, Nicholas, but I already knew that. I was only startled.” Seiji said it with as much contempt as it was possible for him to summon.

“_If_ I was gonna ask you out, it wouldn't be for studying. That's way too lame, even for the new-and-improved Nick who calls study groups fun.”

“I don't doubt that,” Seiji said. He also didn't doubt that Nicholas never _would _ask him out, so it was a moot point to start with.

“But you're my only friend in our year so we should definitely do some studying.”

“You've got plenty of friends from our class,” Seiji could point out at least a dozen kids Nicholas was always talking to.

“Well, yeah. But not _friend_ friends. Not people I actually want to spend time with.”

“Why on earth would you befriend people on any level if you don't want to spend time with them?” Seiji asked but Nicholas shrugged. Extroverts. Seiji didn't understand a single one of them. But then it occurred to him that Nicholas had named _him _as his only friend in the freshman class. Which meant that Nicholas did actually want to spend time with him. His heart did some frivolous gymnastics in his chest. He set his face straight, not wanting to show how happy that made him. “You just want to study together so I can help you with our assignments.”

“It's your fault for being so smart,” Nicholas said sweetly.

Seiji didn't stand a chance.


	8. Chapter 8

Nick was pretty sure he could have convinced Seiji to come to the whole study group if he'd worked harder for it. But Seiji had easily agreed to come to the library with him today to work on the review packet for math and Nick didn't see a reason to push Seiji to come and experience the chaos of the whole crew ‘studying.’ And, honestly, he bothered Seiji into enough group mingling lately. The guy deserved a break. There may have been a third reason, one to do with not feeling like sharing, but it was stupid so Nick didn't dwell on it.

Seiji was sitting across from him, his notes neatly arranged around him and his math packet open. It wasn't like he really _needed_ the notes as far as Nick could tell, it was more of a comfort thing. Because he was breezing through the whole packet without ever slowing down to check notes. Nick was muddling along at a much slower pace. Half because the problems took him some time to get his head around and half because he kept zoning out, getting distracted, or otherwise finding some way to spend as much time _not_ doing his homework as he spent doing it. He'd accepted in middle school that that was just the way his brain worked; in a roundabout and procrastination driven sort of a way.

His current distraction was his study buddy. Seiji was diligently at work and it was like his world had zeroed down to be nothing besides his math. He hadn't spoken to, looked at, or otherwise acknowledged Nick in any way since they'd started in on this forty or so minutes ago. It was fascinating how deep in concentration he was. He didn't even notice Nick examining him across the table. And Nick _was_ examining him. It was strange but he'd never really looked at Seiji before. It was always about fencing to him. Even now, the image his mind conjured to accompany the name Seiji Katayama was one of a sneering boy in a fencing jacket. But that wasn't really Seiji. At least, it wasn't all that Seiji was. But he'd never taken time to correct the impression.

So he corrected it now, taking stock of the neat hair and the perfectly arched eyebrows and of the eyes they pulled low over, dark and focused. Then there was that little beauty mark under his left eye, tucked away in the corner and entirely conspicuous. Nick stared hard at it. Shit, had he even known Seiji had a beauty mark? He must have, but, just like most things about Seiji outside of fencing, Nick had never paid attention to it before. He liked it, he decided. It somehow didn't suit Seiji’s personality. Seiji was so neat and orderly and precise, Nick doubted he'd have designed his face with the mole, asymmetrical and dark against otherwise perfectly pale skin. But it suited his face. It looked good there, nestled under his eye.

Seiji looked up. Nick felt like he'd been caught but shrugged off the guilt. He hadn't been doing anything wrong.

“Do you want something?” Seiji asked. Nick worried he'd done something to piss Seiji off, then he realized that this was just how Seiji reacted when Nick caught him unawares. Immediately defensive. Nick could have flinched at the reason _why_ Seiji had a tendency to snap when he noticed Nick’s attention on him. It was because of all the times that attention had gotten nasty. And the interruption in his work probably didn't make his tone any fonder either.

“Not really,” Nick said easily but didn't look away yet. He wished he could take back all his shittiness but, since he couldn't, he'd just have to make sure not to be an asshole anymore. Maybe he could get Seiji’s defenses to lower for him. An idea sparked and he smiled innocently. “But if you have a minute, could you help me with this problem? I've been working on it for a while and I'm struggling with it.”

Seiji glanced down at his paper, marked up no farther than problem eight. He didn't react in any other way and Nick started to worry that he'd miscalculated. He thought Seiji might mock him and embarrassment was starting to take him preemptively. Obviously Seiji wouldn't want to help him. He was too busy doing his own work and would probably take offense at being asked to help like he was a tutor or something.

“You're on the right track,” Seiji said. Nick smiled, relieved. “But you've stopped partway to the answer, you need to take your solution here,” he leaned across the table to tap at Nick’s calculation. “And use it to find the area. You do know how to do that, don't you?”

“Yeah,” Nick said, slightly defensive.

“Good, then do it. Tell me when you've finished so we can do the next step.”

“Thanks,” Nick turned to his abandoned scribbles and easily found the area. He hadn't needed help and he didn't need help now as he asked Seiji what to do next. But it lured Seiji around the table into the seat next to Nick. It was hard doing math upside down. Nick was pleased as punch that his truck had worked on Seiji. It had been fifty-fifty whether Seiji would be glad or annoyed to be asked for help. Nick glanced up at Seiji and decided that he seemed equal parts of both. But he was still sitting closer than before, which had to be counted as a win.

_Wait. Why_ _is Seiji being closer than before a win?_ He didn't bother analyzing that. He was good at ignoring things that seemed like trouble. Sometimes.

Up close, Nick noticed that Seiji smelled like his fancy shampoo. And how long his eyelashes were. And how his lips were naturally set in a frown, even when relaxed. Nick was happily listening to Seiji explain something about the problem that he probably could have figured out alone. But he liked how low and soft Seiji’s voice was. Like he was sharing a secret, or having an intimate conversation.

“Nicholas?” Seiji prompted. Shit, what had he asked?

“Yeah?”

“Do you understand why we have to divide it by four?”

“Uh, yeah,” Nick glanced down at the problem, trying to see what part they were even talking about.

“Well?”

“It's because…the length of one of the straight edges of the pool is four feet long?” He knew right away that it was the wrong answer and even if he hadn't, Seiji’s face would have tipped him off. It wasn't his fault though. He'd panicked.

“Nicholas, I'm trying to be patient but you have got to try to stop being dumb.” Truly, Seiji wasn't the nurturing type.

“I was distracted,” Nick defended, trying not to laugh. Laughing would probably piss Seiji off more.

“By _what?”_ Seiji asked in exasperation.

“What do you think?” Nick asked, eyes boring into Seiji’s. He didn't expect Seiji to catch his meaning, which would probably be ideal since he hadn't really meant to say it. But, slowly, Seiji colored. And Nick thought he might have understood after all.

“Hi guys!” Bobby’s chipper voice broke the moment and both Nick and Seiji looked up to find Bobby across the table. “Do you mind if I sit? I've got buttloads of homework.”

“Yeah, go for it,” Nick said automatically. Bobby smiled gratefully and plopped down across from him, in Seiji’s old spot. Nick glanced over at Seiji, hoping he hadn't planned to move back there. He didn't look like he had any opinion in particular about this new development. So it was probably fine.

“Thanks! What're you working on?”

“Math.”

“Bleh.”

“No kidding. What've you got?”

“A killer project for chemistry. It's awful, you'll see. But I got Eugene for a partner and he's really nice!”

“Yeah, Eugene's cool,” Nick agreed. “I wish I had any of you guys in my classes. I got the fucking _worst _history partner last time we did a project.”

“But at least you have Seiji.”

“Yeah, thank god for that,” Nick laughed and Bobby seemed surprised he had actually agreed. He squinted eyes at Nick in a way that promised a _conversation _later. Nick waved him off and turned back to Seiji. “So why _do_ we divide by four?”

“Because the pool only has a fourth of a circle attached to it, see?” He pointed to the diagram and Nick nodded.

“Right. Divide by four. And…add to the rectangle area?”

“Yes. But remember to account for the island.”

“Man, this is the dumbest pool I've ever seen.” But he got to work. And when he was past that problem, he asked Seiji for help when he ran into trouble on the next page. Seiji explained with brisk efficiency and Nick got through it much faster than if he'd worked it out alone. This study date had been a really good idea.

It was half an hour since Bobby had joined them when Eugene wandered over and pulled up a seat next to him and the two of them started talking about their chem project. And not long after that, Aiden and Harvard appeared. Then Tanner and Kally. And it was too much of a coincidence for them all to be here. Nick guessed that Bobby or Eugene had sent out a group text. Nick didn't mind, he liked having everyone there, but it did mean his attention was stretched further. He kind of missed the simple intimacy of being alone at the table with Seiji.

“Kallllllyyyy,” Tanner whined some time after joining the group. “I don't understand this bullshit, can't you just let me copy your homework?”

“You need to learn how to do it,” Kally admonished lightly. “I won't always be here for you to copy off of.”

“You're the worst. If you really loved me you'd let me just read over your assignment,” Tanner continued, needling in the way he did. He only did it because Kally let him and that's how they worked, but Seiji didn't know that. He didn't know any of the group dynamics yet.

“It's your work,” he snapped, startling everyone.“It's your responsibility to do it, not Kally’s.”

“Hey, nose out, dickhole. You might be some hotshot fencer but you don't know shit.” Aaaand Tanner was fired up. He was easily excited, in any direction. Especially since he still hadn't forgiven Seiji for ‘taking’ Kally’s spot on the team.

“That's rich,” Seiji said with a sneer so condescending it reminded Nick why he'd been so upset about Seiji liking him in the first place, “since I understand your assignment perfectly at this point. Kally’s explained it in a very understandable way, even a middle schooler would be able to grasp it.”

“And you'd know, since you're, what, thirteen?”

“If I were, it would be all the sadder that you lost to me.”

“Say that again, you little shit,” Tanner was rearing for a fight but Kally caught his elbow, keeping him down. “You're lucky Kally’s taken pity on you and decided to adopt you like a lost kitten or you wouldn't be allowed to sit with us at all.”

“Tanner!” Approximately three voices mixed to call the warning. But it was too late. Seiji was already shooting to his feet. But he didn't attack Tanner. Instead, he cooly collected his notebook and pencil bag.

“That's fine by me, I've no desire to sit here anyway.” And he left, leaving a chill in his wake. Nick fired a glare at Tanner before getting up and grabbing Seiji’s bag, which had still been tucked neatly by Bobby’s chair.

“Be right back,” he promised before going after Seiji. It didn't take long to catch up with him and Nick grabbed his shoulder to spin him around.

“What?” Seiji was in a foul mood.

“I'm sorry.” It obviously wasn't what Seiji had been expecting.

“For what?”

“Everything. Just, I didn't mean for it to grow into the whole gang. Next time for sure it'll be just us. Promise.” He offered Seiji his bag. Seiji took it, suspicious, but he gave a nod before continuing on his way. Nick knew not even he could talk Seiji into coming back with him so he returned to the study party alone and sat down. Everyone was staring at him in an odd way so he shrugged self-consciously.

“Sorry about that,” he said into the awkward silence. “He was just mad because he thought Tanner was attacking Kally. And he likes Kally.” A lot more than Nick had thought, apparently. It made his stomach churn unpleasantly.

“Do you really think so?” Kally asked, quietly pleased with the news. Nick nodded and then everything turned back to the pre-explosion mix of chatter and work. But Nick caught Bobby giving him a curious look again.

It was another hour and before the study party disbanded. Bobby caught Nick's arm on their way from the library and steered him away from everyone else.

“You know, I think I was wrong,” he told Nick in an empty hallway near a back stairwell.

“About?”

“About Seiji’s crush. I think I was way off base.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Someone who can make Seiji be a part of the team. But that's not Harvard.” _Shit_. “That's you.” _Double shit_. “That has to mean something, right?”

Unsure what else to do, Nick laughed. But it came out stilted and awkward. Bobby’s eyes grew wide.

“Oh my saints,” he breathed. “You knew?”

“What? No,” but it was clear the gig was up.

“Nick!” Bobby swatted his arm. “Oh my god. Seiji Katayama _likes_ you.”

“Don't sound so surprised,” Nick grouched.

“I can't help it!” Bobby squeaked. “You were so _mean_ to him, I can't believe he—,” Bobby cut off, eyes going from circles to slits in a millisecond. “Have you known he liked you this whole time?”

“I might have?”

“Nick!” And this time his hit to Nick’s arm was painful. “You were so mean and that whole time you _knew?_”

“Whatever, I'm over it now,” Nick said, but he was going red with guilt and shame. Bobby didn't even know the half of it. He'd tried hard to turn Seiji off him. But it hadn't worked. Somehow, it hadn't worked.

“What was there to ‘get over?’” Bobby asked with disbelief.

“I don't know. It's stupid. I was stupid. But it's fine now.”

“Okay, if you say so. But Seiji won't be happy when he finds out.”

“Why would he find out?”

“Things have a way of coming out, Nick. And if you plan on pursuing Seiji, he'll find out eventually that you were mean on purpose.”

“Pursue him? I don't—,” but he kept thinking about how cute Seiji’s beauty mark was. And how nice his voice had been, quiet and controlled. And how good he'd smelled. _Huh_. When had that happened?

“God, you're so stupid sometimes.”

“I know,” Nick groaned. “But he definitely still likes me, right? I couldn't scare him off. He likes me better than Harvard or Kally, don't you think?”

Bobby just shook his head and threw up his hands. “Bless his soul,” Bobby muttered as he left Nick in the stairwell. “He's got his work cut out for him with you.”


	9. Chapter 9

Seiji preferred to study alone. He was happier installed at the desk in his room than he was in the library. It was ironic that he found the _library_ to be too loud and distracting but it was. And he was glad to be away from the chaos. Without Nicholas's questions every couple of minutes, he made a much bigger dent in his review packet than he might have otherwise. But he hadn't minded Nicholas sitting next to him, hadn’t found his questions overly annoying so long as he actually paid attention after asking for help.

And Nicholas had come after him. _Again_, Seiji realized. Nicholas had come after him twice in so many weeks. Not that it meant anything. But it still sent a little thrill through him to remember it. _Next time for sure it'll be just us._

The door opened and Nicholas spilled into the room. He grinned at Seiji on his way to his bed. Knowing Nicholas had a disconcerting habit of changing clothes no matter which side of the curtain Seiji was on, he hurried to pack up his things and vacate the desk. He could call it a night, he'd gotten enough work done.

But as he was pulling out his own change of clothes, he noticed that Nicholas was purposefully on his side of the curtain, curiously watching him. Seiji opened his mouth to demand an explanation for the invasion of his privacy but decided last minute to ignore it instead and hope he'd go away.

“Hey, you like me, right?”

Seiji was sure he'd misheard. He stared at Nicholas blankly. He _couldn't _have heard right. Or he must have misunderstood. But the way Nicholas was watching him…

“How long?” Seiji asked in a hoarse voice. This was unexpected. Inconvenient. Horrifying. “How long have you known?”

“Since you lost your footing down the wall on our way to the clubhouse,” Nicholas said, looking slightly abashed. Seiji was racked with embarrassment just thinking about it. He'd been near enough the ground that he'd have been fine but falling at all was humiliation enough. And then Nicholas had caught him and steadied him against the wall. And Seiji didn't remember much after that. Just that he'd gone red, panicked, and pushed Nicholas off of him with rather more force than had been strictly needed.

“Since the beginning, then?” Seiji asked faintly.

“More or less,” and now abashment had turned to guilt. And it occurred to Seiji what this revelation meant.

“You did it all on purpose,” he realized. Nicholas winced a little. “You meant for me to get hurt by everything you said.” He didn't understand the point of this. Was it the punchline to a long-awaited joke? “Why?” He asked and it could be taken to be asking any number of things. Nicholas went with the obvious.

“I was mad you don't think I'm a worthy rival, I guess. I'm sorry I was a dick.”

“You're _sorry_,” Seiji repeated with such obvious derision Nicholas grimaced.

“Yeah I know, it doesn't really cover all my dickiness, does it? But listen, I really am sorry.”

“And you think I'll accept that?” Seiji asked, feeling angry and more than a little hurt. It didn't help that he was still failing to come up with a motive for Nicholas to bring this up now. “You expect me to forgive and forget?”

“Not exactly,” Nicholas shrugged. “I guess I'm just taking the gamble.”

“What gamble?”

“That if my behavior didn't stop you liking me, fessing up to it won't make you stop liking me either.”

“And you want that?” Seiji asked, distracted for a moment from his rage. “Winning your gamble would mean I _keep_ liking you?” He clarified.

“Yeah,” Nicholas shrugged up a shoulder again. “And since you still liked me even when I was intentionally shitty to you to try and make you _stop_ liking me…I’m just really hoping that admitting that won't make you hate me either.”

Seiji had nothing to say to that. He was caught between angry and confused and something infuriating close to hope, so covered over by the former two as to be almost invisible. He couldn’t think of anything more to do than stare at Nicholas and try to process it all.

“Besides,” Nicholas said when it was clear Seiji had nothing to add to the conversation. “I figured it was better I tell you now than you finding out later.”

What could timing possibly matter, Seiji wondered. Why didn't Nicholas just keep it to himself? Why would he admit to it at all? But, once again, all Seiji could ask was, “Why?”

“Because I've got this idea—a really stupid idea, probably—about dating you.” Nicholas smiled at Seiji a little shyly. This couldn't be happening. “And I want to do it right. So I'm giving you the facts before I ask you out.”

Nicholas was looking at Seiji, apprehensive and hopeful and waiting. And this couldn't be right. Because Nicholas Cox was not one of the things Seiji could have. Nicholas's affections weren't something he could win through training and tournaments. Nicholas was impossible. These feelings Seiji had for him had always been to be ignored until they went away. This wasn't supposed to happen. This didn't make sense.

“I…” Seiji was sure his expression was quite a sight. Nicholas was still watching him but had no idea what to say. So he didn't say anything. He picked up his pajamas and walked into the bathroom as though it was the logical thing to do, the door shutting firmly behind him. His expression, he now saw, was exactly as shocked and dumbstruck as he'd feared. It didn't look good on him.

“Uh, Seiji?” Nicholas called through the door. Seiji ignored it. The shock was subsiding now. Not all the way, but enough to allow other emotions and sensations some ground.

“I'm not interested in whatever poor idea of a prank this is,” Seiji said. It only passed for calm because Nicholas couldn't see him. Seiji went ahead and got ready for bed, making more noise clattering around the bathroom than he ever would typically so Nicholas knew not to try talking. Nicholas didn't take the hint. He never took the hint.

“Shit, okay, I can see why you'd think that but it's really not a joke or something. I wouldn't go that far.”

“No? The final line you won't cross but everything just short of it is fine?” Seiji asked, fury taking hold of him as he buttoned up his shirt.

“I'm sorry about that all. Really sorry. Really, really, really sorry!” He sounded like a child. Seiji ignored him, got out his toothbrush. His silence only allowed Nicholas more room to talk. “I know I was a dick. And I crossed a lot of lines I shouldn't have. And it's fine if you don't want to date me now because of it; that's why I wanted to tell you. All my cards are on the table now, no tricks.” A slight pause and then Nicholas said, quiet, “I understand if you don’t want to be friends with me anymore too.” He fell silent and Seiji finished brushing his teeth in peace.

It was true that Nicholas could have asked him out without any admission to the reasons behind his so recently unkind behavior. Seiji knew he'd have said yes after a handful of sweet words and a bright smile. If this was a prank, Nicholas could have pulled it weeks ago and with much higher efficiency.

And if it wasn't a prank…he still could have omitted this part. It would have been easier if he really did want Seiji to keep liking him. To date him. That honesty meant something to Seiji. Soothed his anger just enough to open the door.

“You don't like me,” Seiji said to a startled Nicholas, stepping back at the sudden motion.

“I don't? I know I'm slow on the uptake but I really don't think I’m dumb enough to get something this important wrong.”

“Really? The seemingly endless bounds of your stupidity have always amazed me.”

“I deserved that,” Nicholas said with a grin, obviously not offended at all. Then his face transformed, leaving no trace of levity. And here it was, one of those strange moments of intense sincerity that had captured Seiji’s interest. “I like you. I'm sorry I was awful and then that it took me this long to figure it out. But I really do like you, Seiji.”

Seiji shut the door again. He clicked it locked and stared at it. As if it could offer him the secrets to the universe. The secrets to Nicholas Cox.

He turned from the door abruptly, a hand pushing up through his hair in a reemergence of an old nervous tick he'd eradicated years ago. Nicholas was…Nicholas _liked_…he wanted to…

“Impossible,” Seiji whispered to his reflection. But it was so easy to believe Nicholas’s open smile, his sincere demeanor. Seiji liked getting what he wanted. And he wanted Nicholas. But if he let that fantasy become a true possibility, there'd be no going back.

He took a deep breath, very pointedly did _not _fix his hair, and opened the door.


	10. Chapter 10

When the door burst open this time there was a sense of purpose behind it.

“I'm mad at you.” It would have been cute if it weren't coming from Seiji. The childish ring to the words, the crossed arms, the whole thing. It would have been cute if Nick didn't know Seiji. If he didn't know that Seiji meant it, that it was a warning. If his eyes weren't stormy and intense. But, fuck, it might have been cute anyway.

“Okay,” Nick said, waiting for Seiji to continue.

“Your behavior up until recently has been abhorrent. I won't tolerate any of that again, you understand. I'll allow you another chance,” narrowed eyes as he brought up a single finger. “Just one. Don't waste it.”

“I won't,” Nick was grinning even as he let out the breath he'd been holding. He took a step closer to Seiji and, although he didn't know exactly what he'd planned to do after that step, he didn't worry about it. He'd figure it out.

Seiji’s hand shot forward, his finger, previously used as a visual to his point, jabbed into Nick's forehead and halted him in place.

“No,” Seiji said. Nick should have known it wouldn't be that easy. “I'm still mad at you.” Then he flicked Nick. Actually _flicked _him. Who did that?

“Alright, point taken,” Nick nodded, unable to hide the slight amusement he felt about this whole situation. “How do I make it up to you? Flowers? Chocolates? A mixtape?”

“Don't get cheeky with me,” Seiji scolded and Nick half expected him to tack on a_ young man_ to the end of that sentence.

“No cheek, got it. What can I do?”

“An apology is in order.”

“I already said I was sorry,” Nick protested. It wasn't that he had a problem apologizing. It was just that he didn't know what more to say on it.

“If a simple _sorry_ is the best you can do, I'm not convinced you're properly repentant.”

“Now you're just being high maintenance about it,” Nick teased. Not his wisest move, he realized, and he watched Seiji’s face for offense.

“Well?” Seiji asked simply. “Am I worth the maintenance?” Nick let out a laugh, also against his better judgment.

“Definitely.” Well, here went nothing. “First, I don't think you understand how much you mean to me. Like, not even in a romantic way—that didn't happen until recently. It's like this: you're amazing. Unfairly amazing. I didn't know or care about you at all until I met you and I haven't stopped thinking of you since. I guess that's what got me angry. I spent six months thinking about you nonstop before coming here and actually meeting you. But you didn't even remember me.”

“Obviously not; why would I?”

“See,” Nick winced, “that right there is what I'm talking about. I was some nobody you couldn't even be bothered to recognize out of a crowd of other nobodies. But I don't want to be a nobody to you.”

“You're not. I wouldn't like you if you didn't mean anything to me.”

Nick shrugged. “It's different. You don't see me as a fencer. You only see me as a person. And I know it's dumb but it pissed me off. Because I basically just saw you as a fencer. I wanted you to _see me _on the strip. But instead, you saw me off of it. And I took way too long to figure out that that's batter. So I did my best to make you stop. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry I was mean and I'm sorry I hurt you and I'm especially sorry I did it on purpose. You didn't deserve that. I'd take it back if I could and do it completely different.” Seiji nodded. But Nick wasn't done. “I know I can't change it but I did realize it was shitty. And I regretted it. And I started seeing you as a person too. Not just as a fencer. I meant it when I apologized for being a bad friend. And I finally get that I'm really lucky, you know? For someone like you to like someone like me, even after all the shit I put you through? It's kind of impossible. I got off track but the point in this rambling mess is that I'm really sorry and I really like you,” even if he'd only pieced that together today after a lecture from Bobby. But Seiji didn't need to know that particular detail. “And now I'm sure I got the best possible outcome. I'd rather you see me and like me for who I am. Better you see me as a nobody fencer than as a worthy rival that you hate. I don't want to be another Jesse to you. I want to be someone you like and trust and want to be with. Because you're really incredible. Talented as all hell with a blade, but you're more than that too, and I'm sorry it took me so long to see. Like how smart you are, how clever and fun to talk to. And how nice you are, even if you're grumpy about it. Actually, I really like that. And you're really good looking,” Nick flashed his teeth in a smile. “Behind that scowl you've always got on. And you have really pretty hair that always looks good, scowly face included. And I am so fucking dumb for ever wanting you to stop liking me. I'm super, duper sorry with a cherry on top?”

Seiji looked adequately flustered. Apparently, he hadn't expected Nick’s grand apology to be so heavy in flattery. Nick grinned again, raised an eyebrow. _So?_ He silently asked. _How'd I do?_

“Time,” Seiji said. Nick didn't understand. Seiji cleared his throat, regained his composure. “The other thing I'll need is time.”

“And then?”

“And then you can ask me out. But I need time to stop being angry.”

Nick nodded again but, watching Seiji, Nick wasn't sure he needed time. He looked ready to give if Nick simply pushed a little harder right now. Just a few sweet words and Nick could have him without any wait at all.

Nick stepped forward again. This time, he wasn't stopped. Only watched warily.

“I like your hair this way,” Nick said, taking a strand of it between his fingers and tugging playfully. Seiji glared. Nick let out a soft exhale of a laugh. He knew Seiji must have fought the impulse to fix it and had restrained only so that Nick couldn't make fun of the fact that he was preening.

Sighing, Nick let his hand drop. “Time,” he said. He owed Seiji time to calm down and assess and process and weigh his options. The least Nick could do was give him that after all the shit he'd said early on. It wouldn't be right to push now. “How much time, do you think?”

“I'm not sure.”

“Not enough that you'll get over me, right?”

“I sincerely doubt it,” Seiji seemed resigned as he said it and Nick could have been offended at how put-off Seiji was over the persistent crush he had on Nick. But he thought it was more funny than hurtful. And he was so relieved over how well Seiji had taken his confession that it would have taken much worse than that to actually hurt his feelings.


	11. Chapter 11

Nicholas liked him. _Nicholas_ liked him. Nicholas _liked _him. Nicholas liked _him._

Seiji hadn’t anticipated this, hadn’t even bothered considering it. Every time Nicholas had said or done something to spike Seiji’s heart rate, he’d berated himself and pushed away the hopeless and pitiful little thought of _maybe it means something._ He’d told himself over and over again that it didn’t. That it couldn’t.

But it had.

Now, Nicholas watched him shamelessly over his laptop, his typing notably absent in the quiet library. Seiji tried to ignore it. Tried not to let Nicholas know how heavy his gaze fell on Seiji’s shoulders. He assumed if he just ignored it long enough, he and everyone else scattered through the library would once again be subjected to Nicholas’s loud sighs over the essay he was meant to be writing.

“Don’t you have anything better to do than stare at me?” Seiji asked when Nicholas failed to return to his essay. “I thought we were here to study.”

“We are,” Nicholas agreed quickly. Then he smiled. “You didn’t notice last time. About how bad I am at studying.”

“It’s apparent to anyone who’s met you how terrible you are at studying. You couldn’t even pay attention properly when I was explaining—,” Seiji cut off, noticing the way Nicholas’s smile had grown into the type that wanted to be a laugh. Seiji fought off a flush, understanding now that Nicholas was suggesting he’d been staring last time they’d studied together too. And Seiji hadn’t noticed. He scowled. Of course he hadn’t noticed. He’d been busy. And he hadn’t thought to worry about where Nicholas’s eyes were. “I’m never helping you again if all you wanted to do was _look_ at me.” And Seiji _did_ flush after that, realizing what an absurd and embarrassing thing to say it had been.

“That’s not _all_ I wanted,” there was that smile again. It unnerved Seiji that Nicholas employed the same smile for annoying Seiji _and_ flirting with him. Seiji almost dropped his pencil. _Flirting. _What a bizarre thought but it was true. Nicholas had spent the last week openly and frequently flirting with him.

“How reassuring. I’m still not helping you anymore.” It was a lie and they both knew it. And when Nicholas pushed his computer across the table with a pleading look, Seiji took it and scrolled through what Nicholas had written so far.

“I can tell from your face it’s terrible,” Nicholas finally delivered on one of those frustrated sighs. “How do you make words do what you want them to?”

“To be fair,” Seiji said mildly, “it’s not just the words that are the trouble. Did you do any research at all?”

“I…”

“And you haven’t even formatted this like an argumentative paper. It’s like some sort of strange and rambling narrative with dubious facts scattered through it.”

“That’s a little harsh,” Nicholas mumbled.

“It’s accurate. Here, I’m pulling up the outline example attached to the rubric. You’ll have to start over, I’m not sure where or what your thesis even is in this mess.”

“I like you better when we’re doing math.”

“I thought you always liked me?” Seiji watched curiously as Nicholas absorbed the question. Seiji hadn’t outwardly acknowledged the change in their non-relationship. He’d never responded to any of Nicholas’s flirting and he most definitely hadn’t said anything passably flirtatious himself. It was understandable, then, that Nicholas looked so shocked. But then he leaned in across the table, much too close for Seiji’s personal space and his smile was practically too loud for the library.

“I do. With all my heart.” It was delivered so effortlessly that Seiji expected an accompanying wink or laugh. He received neither one of those things and, to his astonishment, Seiji saw color spread across Nicholas’s face. “That was _way_ too cheesy, I’m so sorry I even said that.”

“You never think before you speak, which is why you end up regretting half of it. Similarly, if you’d just read through this assignment before starting it, you wouldn’t have to scrap it. I suggest you write your thesis and then research it. After that, you can get into the actual paper.” Seiji returned Nicholas’s laptop to him with some level of satisfaction at Nicholas’s embarrassment. It was nice for the script to be flipped for once; Nicholas embarrassing himself rather than Seiji. And, honestly, Seiji didn’t think that was even remotely the most horrifically cheesy thing Nicholas had ever said to him.

“Ugh. Fine. But I’m going to complain about it,” Nicholas groused, clacking angrily away at his keyboard.

“By all means, go right ahead. I brought my headphones.”

Nicholas rolled his eyes and lapsed into silence, despite his declaration that there’d be complaining. It was an hour before Seiji noticed his undivided attention again. But this time there was a shyness, a hesitancy, in the way Nicholas watched him. That threw Seiji off more than anything, as these strange and scattered moments of vulnerability always did.

“Hey, Seiji,” Nicholas started but was interrupted by the loud _thwump_ of a heavy stack of books landing on the table next to him.

“Hello kiddies, fancy meeting you here,” Aiden said, dropping into a seat at the table, which was shortly filled up by what Nicholas would call _the_ _whole gang._ Seiji pursed his lips. It seemed the library was a terrible place for privacy. “You could’ve let us know you’d be here. We’d have come earlier.” Aiden’s sharp smile suggested he knew that it had been a conscious choice not sending out an open invitation. Eugene seemed to think this subtly too boring.

“What’re you talking about? We’re clearly interrupting their study date,” Eugene said with a laugh loud enough to earn a warning look from the librarian. Nicholas flicked an eraser at Eugene that wasn’t his to use and Bobby screeched, diving for the three-dimensional ice cream eraser that was clearly more for aesthetics than any practical purpose.

“Boys!” Mr. Rickett admonished them sharply. Bobby squeaked an apology and whacked Nicholas on the arm for abusing his trinket. The table was even more crowded than last time with the tall boy Seiji had learned was called Dante squeezed in next to Bobby. And while, moments ago, sitting across from Nicholas had seemed plenty close, now Seiji wished he’d sat next to him instead. To his immense displeasure, Seiji found himself with Tanner on his right and Aiden, around the corner, on his left. He’d have preferred to be seated next to anyone else.

Nicholas caught his eye across the distance that had somehow grown in the last minute and mouthed a _sorry._ He looked worried as well as guilty. Seiji shook his head slightly, trying to convey that it was hardly Nicholas’s fault they’d all come again. The worry, though, Seiji could understand. Especially when Nicholas’s eyes slid unbidden to Seiji’s right. Tanner was too easily swayed and highly emotional—Seiji didn’t do well with people like him. It was like trying to talk with someone from another planet. Tanner, for his part, wasn’t concerned with Seiji at all. That was another thing about him; he got over things—possibly, he forgot them—very quickly.

Seiji wasn't upset about Tanner’s comment, exactly. But there was a truth to it that made him feel uncomfortable whenever he landed in a situation with all of these people, only some of which he'd count as anything close to friends. But it wasn't his fault Kally had _adopted him like a lost kitten. _He'd done very little to encourage that and, besides, it was Nicholas that convinced him into most of these things, not Kally.

“Seiji,” Nicholas said, capturing Seiji’s attention through the quiet chaos. “Can you check over my outline real quick?”

Seiji accepted the laptop, scanning over a document much more promising than the last. He didn't notice Nicholas's real purpose for handing the computer over to him even though the message was clearly italicized in the middle of a sentence. Honestly, Seiji he assumed Nicholas was just hopeless at formatting so it hadn't caught his eye the first glance over.

_Can you believe these assholes sat with US again??? Wanna leave?_

Seiji considered the little message. He hadn't thought of it before but _he_ wasn’t the one to assume his welcome at this table a week ago. Nicholas had thought of it, though. Had thought to share the insight with Seiji. To offer an exit, even. Seiji didn't enjoy appearing weak. And this level of coddling from Nicholas could easily count as an offense, an implication that Nicholas viewed him as such. He deleted the offer with extreme prejudice.

But he caught Nicholas’s expression across the table, fully worried now, and it made him bite back his irritation—a practice he was not accustomed to when it came to Nicholas Cox. He knew he was villainizing the gesture. Knew Nicholas meant well. _Unlike the time he called me less appealing than a slug. Or pushed me in the bathroom. _And that was the issue. It cropped up recently and, in Seiji's opinion, rather understandably. Anything at all that hinted at Nicholas's uncanny understanding of Seiji’s thoughts or feelings made his anger spike. Because not too long ago, that understanding had been used in a very different way.

“What do you think?” Nicholas asked tentatively. He must have noticed that he'd managed to anger Seiji.

“The italics were unnecessary,” he said, forgetting his efforts to keep his irritation at bay. He proceeded to give Nicholas a detailed critique of the outline thus far despite there being no reason for it. Nicholas hadn't truly wanted his opinion on the paper. Seiji gave it anyway.

“Damn, you're brutal,” Tanner quipped when Seiji ran out of criticism. He noticed that the entire table had fallen silent and all attention was conspicuously not on him as soon as he looked up. “Talk about a soul-crushing review. You never heard of a compliment sandwich?”

“I asked for his help,” Nicholas said, waving Tanner off. But everyone could see his embarrassment as clearly as they could see his heated face. Seiji felt a stab of sympathy that was almost overpowered by guilt. He knew how Nicholas felt and it hadn't been his intent to employ the _eye for an eye _method of justice. He hadn't thought that far ahead. Nicholas turned to him unflinching and sincere. “But are you sure about the italics? I thought you were supposed to italicize things that are important.”

Seiji wasn't able to respond right away. Finally, he gave a tiny nod. “I'm sure.” But he typed out a secret message of his own before relinquishing the computer to Nicholas. _I'm fine. Thank you. _And he meant it, felt better for the check-in even if it meant Nicholas knew better than to assume he’d be comfortable with Tanner and the rest of them.

* * *

Seiji was good at getting what he'd set his mind to. He hadn't considered setting in on the task of getting Nicholas because he'd thought he'd known better than that. But if he had, before that night a week ago, considered it, he wouldn't have thought that getting a date from Nicholas would be less about any sort of effort to persuade Nicholas into it but more about convincing _himself _into it.

Nicholas had won his gamble. It had been horribly obvious to Seiji that his feeling hadn't changed when, amid all the anger and mortification at Nicholas’s confession, there'd still been a prominent stab of hope in his chest. It surprised him to find how much he still liked Nicholas—Seiji was a prideful creature, even he knew that. And Nicholas had made a fool of him. Had played him and used his own feelings to do it. Yet, even so, Seiji still wanted Nicholas. But wanting him—liking him—didn't take away the sting of knowing that every hurt had been deliberate.

Seiji had made up his mind. He very much intended to date Nicholas. But to get that he first had to get over this. And it was an exhausting process. At times, it was so easy to write it off as in the past; so easy to move on and forget it. But in other moments, it seemed impossible to let go of the fierce resentment. Sometimes, it seemed easier to get over Nicholas than what he'd done. And, confusingly, there wasn't a distinct pattern to which emotion would surface and when.

It wasn't what he'd have expected if he'd allowed himself to expect anything at all.

“Fencing late?”

Seiji didn't jump but it was a close thing. It was half an hour before curfew and he hadn't expected to run into anyone here. In fact, he'd been just about to turn in for the night. Slipping off his fencing mask, Seiji turned to face the intruder. And, against his permission, his heart gave the jump his nerves had campaigned for seconds before.

“Why are you here?” Seiji asked and it came out sharply. Nicholas grimaced.

“I was worried,” he shrugged, then added, “I guess,” as if that made the worry any less telling. Seiji's shoulders relaxed.

“I'd ask if you'd like to join but we haven't got the time tonight.” Seiji was already walking to the locker rooms and Nicholas followed along behind.

“Why're you out so late?”

“Why were you in so early?”

Nicholas's laugh was clear and surprised. So often Nicholas laughed at whatever he personally found amusement in. Rarely did he laugh because Seiji had said something actually intended to be amusing. Seiji found that he liked it.

“You're right, I've turned completely boring. I even thought about going to bed at eight.”

“Why didn't you?”

“I told you already.”

“Me?” Seiji asked, his disbelief clear in that single syllable.

“Yeah, you,” Nicholas confirmed. “I wondered if you’d fallen down any walls without me there to catch you.” Strangely, Nicholas’s features rearranged themselves to paint a picture of dissatisfaction. Seiji didn’t get a chance to respond. “I’m sorry. Shit, I keep doing it, don’t I?”

“Doing what?” Seiji asked, even though Nicholas’s question had been rhetorical.

“Saying things like that. I don’t—I’m not trying to make fun of you. But it keeps coming out like that anyway.”

“Stop,” Seiji said, pausing in putting away his blade to frown at Nicholas.

“I’m trying to!”

“No, stop worrying about that. You’ve never managed to _accidentally_ hurt my feelings. I’ve seen the way you interact with your friends and you’re always like that with them. I don’t want you to treat me differently because you think I’m too delicate to take a joke.”

“So,” Nicholas said, slow and carefully considered, “you want me to treat you the same as everyone else?”

_Yes,_ Seiji thought. It was what he’d always wanted. Someone that didn’t treat him any differently because of who he was. To be treated like a friend instead of a god or a serpent. But then Seiji thought of Kally, who still sat with him at least one meal a day. He thought of Eugene, too, who talked happily and readily with him whenever they crossed paths. Seiji already had people who called him a friend.

“Well,” he said, thinking it over. “Not _exactly_ like everyone else.” It occurred to him that to be seen as himself and to be seen as a friend were not precisely the same thing. Nicholas’s smile turned keen once more, that look in his eye a sure sign that he was preparing to pounce.

“Oh yeah?” He asked, sly and slick as the step closer he took to Seiji. “Then how should I treat you?”

“Like me. Like I’m someone important to you but not like something you’re afraid to break. Like more than a friend but not quite a boyfriend. Treat me like you always have but don’t treat me like you did.”

“Okay,” Nicholas agreed. But it wasn’t immediate. Wasn’t flippant. Wasn’t a nothing agreement meant to placate Seiji. He’d thought it over carefully before agreeing, as one might read over a contract before signing. Seiji liked that about Nicholas. The impossible blending he did of absolute seriousness and endless teasing. “I’ll do that, then.”

“Good. You can start by turning around.”

“…Turning around?” Nicholas asked, nonplussed.

“Yes, I need to change and we’re already running late so hurry up.”

“Seiji,” Nicholas said, amused. “I hate to tell you this but I’ve seen you change like a million times by now. In this exact room.”

“It’s different without the others here,” Seiji replied shortly. Nicholas still looked unconvinced but he turned around with surprising obedience to face the lockers.

“If you say so.” Seiji had his jeans on by the time Nicholas spoke again. “I’m sorry. For being so mean.”

“You already gave me an apology,” Seiji said. “I don’t need another one.”

“Maybe not. But I need to give it.” His pause was so long that Seiji turned to see if he planned to continue. It was hard to tell without seeing his face but Seiji thought he had that same quality of hesitancy he’d seen last night at the library. “When I—sometimes, when you’re not expecting it—just, like.” He groaned, a hand worrying restlessly at the back of his neck. Seiji finished pulling on his shirt and caught Nicholas on the shoulder, turning him around.

“We don’t have time for you to have a breakdown right now. Spit it out.” Whatever Nicholas had expected him to say, Seiji didn’t think he’d delivered because Nicholas let out a surprised and spluttering noise that might have been a laugh.

“It’s like sometimes when I’m about to say something, you expect it to be something nasty. And I hate that I caused that. And I’m sorry, Seiji. I don’t know how to make it better.”

“Sometimes I don’t think you can,” Seiji admitted, feeling Nicholas’s muscles tense under his fingers. “But right now I’m feeling optimistic so I think we’ll get over this because we both want to.”

“I didn’t know you were so smart about feelings,” there was a suggestion of a smile in Nicholas’s face, the expression coming off as more relieved than anything else.

“I’m not. It just sounded like something you might say.”


	12. Chapter 12

Nick had never claimed to be a patient person. Delayed gratification was a load of bullshit. Why wait when you could have it now? _Because you can’t have him now,_ Nick thought to himself crossly. It had been easy to agree to wait until Seiji was ready to forgive him—_hopefully_ forgive him—it was harder to actually wait. He kept almost asking Seiji out. They’d just be sitting somewhere together, sometimes doing their own thing, sometimes talking, when he’d look over at Seiji and it would hit him like that phantom pain right before a punch you knew was going to land and going to _hurt_, right to the chest. Seiji was—Seiji was—_fuck_—Seiji was beyond words. There was no way to properly capture all that he was in description. Beautiful and amazing and incredible and intense and sweet and sharp and nothing Nick could ever say could be taken and added up to the boy next to him. And when he realized that, sometimes it was hard not to try and obtain the unobtainable. Nick thought that if he could just hold Seiji, just kiss him, he might be able to find words. If he could feel Seiji and taste him maybe he’d seem more real and less like an impossible dream.

It was insane that he’d so easily accepted, not only that Seiji _was_, but also that he harbored a pretty intense for none other than Nick himself. That had been before he wanted those feelings from Seiji but now that he did, it seemed more and more unlikely that they could actually exist. That someone so full of perfect contradictions like Seiji could exist. And now…now, he worried that he’d look away for a moment and Seiji would be gone. That he’d look over again and see nothing but the guy from nationals with his snide disdain for Nick. That terrified him. More, even, than the idea of that particular light in Seiji’s eyes which shone only for Nick going out or his face staying pale and archly unimpressed with Nick’s flirting.

“I’m not explaining this to you later if you don’t pay attention now,” Seiji hissed without even flicking his eyes off their teacher as she explained…something. Fuck. Maybe Nick did need to pay attention. Regretfully, he pulled his eyes off of Seiji and fixed them to the board, trying to set his mind to the lesson as well. He couldn’t. He kept thinking of Seiji. And if today would be the day Seiji got over him. Or if instead, it would be the day he’d agree if Nick asked him out.

Then Nick remembered the day a month ago that he’d _accidentally_ knocked into Seiji’s desk on the way to the one he’d preferred in the back of the class, spilling all of his things on the floor like some classic old-school bully and he heated in shame. He couldn’t ask Seiji out yet. Not until he’d made up for all he’d done early on.

_…I think we’ll get over this because we both want to._ Nick just had to believe that was true. Had to trust that, when they were past it, Seiji would still like him. And if he didn’t…well, it would serve Nick right for being such a stupid asshole. But Seiji hadn’t discouraged his flirting and that was something. It had been an accident at first, things had just slipped out and he'd expected Seiji to scold him. But Seiji never had and so he’d never stopped. It made him feel better. If he couldn’t date Seiji, he could at least make sure Seiji knew he was interested. And he could be sure Seiji was still responding favorably to that.

Class dragged on but Nick managed to scrape together a reasonable answer to the question thrown at him to prove he wasn't paying attention. He was glad for the lunch bell though.

“I was thinking we should eat outside today,” Nick said as soon as it had rung.

“It rained last night,” Seiji dismissed.

“But it's sunny out now.”

“But the grass will be damp.”

“But outside,” Nick persisted.

“No.”

“What if we found a place that wasn't damp?”

“And spend the entire period searching? No.”

“Fine,” Nick sighed dramatically but Seiji didn't take pity on him. “Oh, look, Eugene's sitting with the team. We should join them.”

“I'm _not_ eating outside today.”

“You said so already,” Nick said with mild confusion. “And I already gave up on that.”

“You're trying to coerce me into going outside.”

“I am not!”

“You are. Either we eat outside or with the team and we already had breakfast with Kally, Bobby, and Dante.”

Nick stopped in his tracks, blocking traffic to the lunch line. Sometimes Seiji said things that, coming from anyone else, would have been bratty. But he said it all so seriously and with such authority that it killed Nick every time he did.

“You—you think I'm _threatening _you with other people to get you to go eat outside with me?” He asked. Just to clarify.

“Yes. If that's how you want to put it.”

“I wasn't,” Nick tried not to let it show how funny he found this. “I wasn't thinking that at all—,”

“Nick!” Someone interrupted him and Nick looked around to find who it was. A blond head bobbed over to him, smiling broadly. Ryder, from history and math. Nick smiled back, greeting him with a peace sign. Ryder laughed but Nick wasn't sure why.

“Hey, Ry, what's up?”

“You haven't sat with me in class in forever,” Ryder said, visibly determined to avoid looking at Seiji as he said this. Seiji, obviously, was the reason Nick wasn't sitting with Ryder or anyone else in his classes these days.

“Can't always live in the background, you know how it is,” Nick offered nonchalantly. “We should catch up sometime.” He liked Ryder just fine and wouldn't mind hanging out with him so it wasn't really a lie. But he couldn't say he'd thought to miss Ryder since switching to the front row.

“Are you free today?” Ryder asked, edging in front of Seiji slightly, a hand finding Nick’s arm casually. “Do you want to go to a movie or something? I know you're busy with fencing but surely you have time for a date every now and then?”

Nick thought he probably looked like a fish, wide eyes and dumbly opened mouth. _A date?_ With Ryder? He hadn't thought Ryder liked him that much. They were just in-class buddies as far as Nick had ever thought but it seemed rude to say as much.

“He's taken,” Seiji cut in, terse and unforgiving. His expression was cool—icy, almost. He sidestepped Ryder to take Nick’s other arm, a lot less casual and gentle than Ryder had been. And then Nick was being pulled out of Ryder’s grasp, his expression morphing from initial shock to something sour by the time Nick wiggled around to face where they were going instead of looking back at the guy Seiji had just rejected on his behalf.

“So,” Nick hedged after they'd made it through the line. He scanned the cafeteria for an empty table and started toward it. “I'm taken, huh?”

“Taken,” Seiji said briskly. “_Not_ dating.”

“Cool. That's good to know.” But he couldn't pretend like he wasn't ecstatic to hear it, didn't even try that hard. Nick slid into place and Seiji followed, ending up a little closer to Nick than usual. Close enough that their hands brushed. When Nick snuck a peek at Seiji, he was hit again with that aching, like a blow to the chest. It kicked his heart into hyperdrive and distributed too much blood to his cheeks. But Seiji’s coolly superior face had given way to one of those spectacular blushes of his and Nick couldn't keep the nervous laugh from burbling out of him. Seiji’s eyebrows drew together.

“We match,” Nick explained. “I'm taken but not dating and you're _more than a friend but not quite a boyfriend.”_


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaayyy I'm back from the dead thanks for waiting! <3

Seiji and Nicholas weren't dating. But they would be. Seiji had already decided as much the night of Nicholas's confession and, though he was still unwilling to officially date the boy who’d purposefully inflicted so many hurts and irritations on him, he was even less willing to have other _Ryders_ crop up, thinking they had some sort of chance with Nicholas when they didn’t. Nicholas was as good as his and he’d rather like everyone else to know it. So he didn’t bother correcting or dismissing the newly hissed rumors about his love life, slightly inaccurate as they were. And Nicholas positively beamed whenever he caught a stare or a hushed jumble of words in the hallways.

“You’ve really limited your options,” Nicholas said with too much cheer on their way to practice that afternoon. “Do you have any idea how many guys in this school were dying to date you? But they’re all disappointed now because they think you’ve got a boyfriend.”

“Limited my options?” Seiji asked, amused. “I don’t see that it matters since the only option I ever wanted is still entirely available.”

The slow-spreading smile that overtook Nicholas’s face was one of delighted bafflement. As such recklessly and unashamedly joyous smiles from Nicholas often did, this one made Seiji pause to try and take in the scope of that emotion. That expression always filled him with longing and he wasn’t ever sure if it was for the one who wore it or for the easy and simple way with which he held that vast joy in him and let it back out again.

Seiji recovered from the captivating smile and his step hardly stuttered at all when he came back to the real world. _The real world where that smile is for me._ It was enough to make him want to try out a delighted and baffled smile of his own. Fingers brushed lightly against his hand and Seiji was sure they were going to twine in his. When their brief warmth left his skin, he realized how much he’d have liked them to. His fingers quickly furled up again, hiding the way they’d already opened and prepared a space for Nicholas’s to fit.

“Do my ears deceive me or did you just flirt with me?” Nicholas queried, spring in his step.

“How unexpected,” Seiji returned dryly. “Stop looking so pleased, you already know I like you.”

“It _is_ unexpected. You never say things like that.”

“And I never will again.”

“No! I mean, I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to be weird about it. I liked it. I kinda don’t know what to do with it but I really, really liked it.”

Seiji was about to snap that Nicholas was only being weirder about it now but then he caught the blush he’d previously been too distracted by Nicholas’s smile to see. And he decided that he might say more _things like that_ after all.

Seiji pushed all thoughts and emotions relating to Nicholas Cox to the back of his mind and locked them up tight. If he let them run rampant during practice, they would destroy his concentration and, as a result, his fencing. The only time his concentration slipped at all was, predictably, when he and Nicholas fenced a bout together. It didn’t affect the outcome—he won, of course. But it wasn’t just his single instance of distraction that had made the score skew slightly more in Nicholas’s favor than it ever had before. He was improving, it was impossible to deny. Whatever Coach Williams had seen in him to make her bring him to Kings Row, it was starting to show more and more apparently.

_More and more like Jesse,_ his subconscious whispered. He’d tried to ignore thoughts like those. Hadn’t brought up the topic of Jesse at all to Nicholas lately. But it was still there and equally as impossible to ignore as Nicholas’s growing skill was to deny. Thinking like that was what had earned Nicholas’s disdain in the first place, thought. He didn’t want to set it off again by asking after Nicholas’s relation to Jesse. He knew there was one. There _had_ to be one. But Nicholas didn’t want him to know what it was and Seiji was trying to respect that. Trying being the operative word.

“Nicholas,” he hadn’t meant to say anything but he’d turned to Nicholas after Coach Williams had ended practice for the day and it had come out unbidden. The question had been dormant for so long and now it was refusing to stay silent. He knew, logically, that, even if it was an appropriate question to ask, now was not the appropriate time to ask it. Their teammates were all loitering around the gym, Eugene and Aiden engaged in a mock battle, and it couldn’t possibly go well.

“What’s up?” Nicholas asked him, offering his full attention.

“You fenced well today,” it was only half the intended thought but, again, there was that smile and, again, there went Seiji’s concentration.

“Thanks!” It was so sincere and so obviously pleased that the second half of Seiji’s intended thought wavered between his mind and his mouth. _It reminded me of Jesse_ would quickly erase that smile and probably replace it with anger. Or worse, hurt.

“Nick!” Eugene sauntered up to Nicholas and looped an arm around his shoulders, his sword fight with Aiden abandoned for now. “I warned you against catching feelings for Seiji, didn’t I? But it looks like it’s going pretty good. I take it you found more than a _spiky interior.” _Eugene winked at Seiji as he said it, indicating he was joking. That was how it was with Eugene; how he made amends wasn’t often through words but through a careful system of testing waters and adjusting behaviors accordingly. He’d never apologized for the conversation Seiji had overheard but he was observant, even if his joking had a way of hiding that, and had made sure Seiji was fine with him continuing to act as he always had. Seiji had already decided not to care what anyone at Kings Row thought of him long before that conversation and he hadn’t planned to hold it against Eugene. He hadn’t planned to feel any specific way about it. But Eugene’s jokes had a way of, rather than brushing something under the rug and pretending it was okay, acknowledging the elephant in the room and somehow _making_ it okay.

Nicholas glanced at Seiji and it was obvious he was asking something. Seiji couldn’t figure out what so he couldn’t offer any input. “Yeah, dude, Seiji’s great and it’s a good thing I didn’t take your advice.”

“Sure, sure, you’re right and I was wrong. You been together long, then?” At Eugene’s question, Nicholas shot another look Seiji’s way before answering.

“Uh, actually, we’re not…_exactly_ dating.” So that’s what his looks had been about. Seiji still didn’t offer input, letting Nicholas explain this however he wanted.

“Ryder’s pretty damn convinced otherwise.”

“Well,” Nicholas bumped Eugene’s arm off him with a shrug, “that was the goal but it’s not completely true. Seiji and I are—uh. It’s…”

“Complicated?” Eugene asked, looking between both Seiji and Nicholas with raised eyebrows.

“Yeah. We’re—,” a third, slightly frantic, look, asking for Seiji’s assistance. “Pre-dating?”

“Okaaaay,” Eugene dragged out the word, loud and amused. “You weirdos.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Nicholas laughed. “We’re gonna go on a not-date now so bug off.”

“Sure, little dudes. Have not-fun.” And with a two-fingered salute, Eugene left them.

“A not-date?” Seiji asked as soon as Eugene was out of earshot. “I don’t recall being asked on one of those.”

“Of course not,” Nicholas said importantly. “If it was a real date, I’d have asked you out on it. But not-dates have different rules. You can’t _ask_ someone to not go on a date with you.”

“Funny. If you’d simply asked me not to date you instead of all the stunts you pulled, I might be more inclined to say yes to an actual date now.”

“If you still liked me.”

“I would.” Seiji paused. Thought. “I suppose, though, that it would be dependent on if you still wound up liking me.”

“I would have.”

“Maybe it’s for the best things turned out as they did.”

“No,” Nicholas said, quick and sure. “I should’ve been better from the start. I can’t take it back now but I can take you out on a not-date. What do you say?”

“I thought it was uncouth to ask one out on a not-date?” Seiji shook his head at Nicholas’s goofy smile. He loved it when Seiji humored his dumb jokes. And Seiji didn’t really hate humoring them either. “Showers first, I think.”


	14. Chapter 14

“What should I wear?”

“What?” Nick asked, turning to Seiji with amused surprise. Seiji finished storing away his sports bag and straightened to look at Nick with impatience.

“What should I wear for this not-date, Nicholas?”

“I don’t care,” Nick was sure that wasn’t the right answer but he also wasn’t sure what the right answer was.

“I didn’t ask what you _wanted_ me to wear,” Seiji scathed, “I asked what I _should_ wear. There’s a difference and it’s a rather important one. Will we be outside or inside? How much walking will be involved? If I wear my best sweater will you drag me somewhere it will get stained?”

“Dunno. Just wear whatever and we’ll make it work.”

“You don’t have a plan, do you?” Seiji asked with a sigh like he ought to have expected this. Nick flashed him some teeth.

“It’s a not-date. You don’t enter into one with a plan.”

With another withering glare, Seiji shooed Nick onto his side of the room. In another ten minutes, he was recollected and they were out the door. Seiji walked close by his side and Nick, swinging his arms as sometimes happened when he stopped paying attention, knocked hands with Seiji’s three times before he finally stuffed both of his into the pocket of his sweatshirt. He was afraid that if it happened a fourth time, he wouldn’t be able to help the impulse to snatch Seiji’s hand up and bring it with his on its arcing swings. He didn’t think it was good manners to hold the hand of someone you weren’t dating. Someone like _Seiji_ that you weren’t dating. Seiji wasn’t the physical type—not like Bobby and Eugene—and Nick assumed there would be talks about what was and wasn’t allowed in terms of public displays of affection. When they started dating. And they hadn’t. So he didn’t think it was alright to just assume Seiji wouldn’t mind the contact.

They made their way off campus, talking idly. Nick didn’t even mind the lapses in conversation. Usually, he hated silence. It made him feel awkward and weird and caused worry in the back of his mind over the likelihood that the silence was an indicator of his partner in conversation being bored. He knew better with Seiji though. Seiji didn’t ever jump to fill in the silence because he only said what he felt needed to be said. That had taken some getting used to but now it felt right to have quiet moments to compliment the times when Nick managed to pull Seiji into a long-winded discussion or stupid banter.

“You can’t be serious,” Seiji said after one of these long stretches of quiet that felt more like intimacy than silences really should. Nick didn’t answer. Not verbally. He only pulled Seiji down the concrete stairs.

“I want you to know how much I like you,” Nick told Seiji solemnly when they were at the bottom, Seiji still being dragged along by the arm across a bed of wood-chips. “Anyone else, I would’ve pushed down the hill.”

“You’ve got some measure of sense in you, then.”

“I know, I’m pretty smart, really. Grass stains on your favorite sweater wouldn’t earn me any favors.”

“No,” Seiji agreed, “I don’t like grass stains. But I was smart enough to leave my favorite sweater in our room.”

“‘Course you were.” Nick dropped Seiji’s arm and grabbed onto chains covered with old, peeling rubber, not yet sticky from use and whether, but close.

“I’m not sitting on that,” Seiji said, staring at Nick like he’d just willingly sat in a pile of cow dung. Nick kicked off the ground and pumped his legs, once, twice, then laughed at Seiji’s pronounced disgust.

“It’s just a swing, Seiji,” he howled over the wind he’d created around himself.

“They’re dirty.”

“Don’t be a wuss, come on,” Nick propelled himself of his swing and stuck his landing impressively well. Except Seiji wasn’t at all impressed with it. “Or were you dumb enough to wear your favorite pants?” At his words, both Seiji and Nick looked down at the pants in question. They didn’t look especially fancy, not the neatly pressed slacks Seiji sometimes wore. “Your jeans will survive,” Nick insisted.

“I know,” but it didn’t seem to encourage Seiji any nearer the swings.

“It’s fun.”

“I doubt that.” His face was taking on that weary, resigned quality Nick was familiar with by now. It meant he was about to get his way even if Seiji wasn’t happy about it.

“Want me to push you?” He asked, already stepping forward to corral Seiji onto the still swing, the one Nick had recently jumped from continuing to make lazy scoops through the air next to it.

“I want you to act your age for once,” Seiji said. He took a reluctant step back for every step forward Nick took, finally taking the swing’s chains in his hands. But he didn’t sit yet. Nick kept advancing.

“We’re kids, Seiji,” Nick breathed out an exhale that was an indication of a laugh. “I know you forget that sometimes but this _is_ acting our age.”

Seiji made a small sound that might have been disgruntled agreement. Or it might have been exasperated disagreement. Or it might have been neither, might have been in response to Nick’s hands falling heavy on the chains, overlapping just slightly with Seiji’s. Nick pushed Seiji and the swing back, back, back, until Seiji was leaning against the seat of the swing even though he was still standing almost completely upright.

Nick wanted to keep leaning. Seiji had nowhere left to go, no more steps left to take backward until he’d surrender his footing and the swing would propel him forward again. Into Nick. Nick wanted to kiss him. Wanted it in the way he wanted to make it as a fencer. Which was to say that the wanting was too big to fit neatly inside him. Soon, that wanting was bound to spill out.

Seiji’s breaths were soft and even, his eyes steady on Nick. The sky was almost entirely dark and Seiji was lit in a combination of distant streetlamp and stars largely obscured by clouds. He looked contemplative. Anticipatory. He didn’t look alarmed or concerned or displeased in the slightest and he didn’t protest no matter how much closer Nick got to him. Soon, Nick could feel Seiji’s breath on his cheeks. It was impossible to imagine maintaining even this much distance. Here was the wanting, ready to spill. Nick felt it buzzing through him like a hit about to score. There was his target, open and unguarded. Ready to be taken.

_“Time,” _Seiji had said. _“The other thing I'll need is time.”_

Nick was relatively sure that he could get away with kissing Seiji tonight, just as he’d suspected he could sweet-talk his way into a date that night weeks ago. But he’d known then and he knew now, Seiji deserved better. And Nick was determined to give him better. This wasn’t the proper way to do things. There should be a talk, shouldn’t there? About feelings and such? And boundaries. Yes, boundaries. Whatever Seiji needed. Nick would give it to him, would give him the opportunity to ask for it. Kissing him now wouldn’t do that.

Sensing the decision, the change of intention, Seiji tilted his head slightly. It was a curious motion, like he was trying to figure Nick out. Nick couldn’t tell if Seiji was relieved or disappointed at the aborted kiss. _A not-kiss for a not-date,_ the thought fleeted through Nick’s mind and then he was ready to make himself withdraw from Seiji’s warmth, break every tantalizing point of contact between them—their overlapping fingers, the nonchalant tap of elbows, the tangled legs and pressed-close hip bones, the length of torso—all burning Nick’s wanting too bright to be a good idea to continue.

He hardly moved an inch before getting caught by Seiji. Self-conscious, the offending hand dropped from where it had very briefly held the nape of Nick’s neck. Even with it gone, Nick wasn’t about to move. He was too stunned, recovering from the short-lived and confused thought—hope—that Seiji had meant to kiss him.

“There’s something I think I need to ask you,” Seiji said, his quiet voice ringing clearly in the dark, sounding reluctant and determined at once. “I don’t think I can let it go.”

“I’m listening.” Nick expected it to be something about all that time he’d spent needling at Seiji and using his feelings against him. He wasn’t looking forward to it but he understood. It wasn’t like they could move past things if they weren’t willing to talk about them. And if Seiji couldn’t let it go, then it was one of those things that needed to be talked about.

“I don’t think you’ll like it,” Seiji confessed. “I think you’ll be mad.”

Nick’s hackles rose against his will. _Y__ou fenced well today_. He knew what this was about and Seiji was right. He didn’t like it. “Ask anyway.”

Seiji deliberated, the seconds stretching on, agonizing and endless. Satisfied with the formation of his thoughts, he spoke at last. “What is your connection to Jesse Coste?”

“What do you want me to say here, Seiji?” Nick asked with a long and tired sigh.

“The truth,” Seiji said. Nick thought, a hand scrubbing absently through his hair. He didn’t want to talk about Jesse. He wanted even less for Seiji to be thinking about Jesse. But he couldn’t lie to Seiji and if Seiji couldn’t drop it…it needed to be talked about.

“The truth…the truth is I really look up to Robert Coste—you know, Jesse’s—,”

“Jesse’s dad, yes, I know.”

“It was a newspaper article of his Olympic win that got me into fencing in the first place. I just—it sounds stupid since he’s just some stranger, but I felt a connection with him. I don’t know.” That was all true. Nick could imagine telling Seiji the rest of the truth too. Eventually. But right now, this was what he had to offer. “Fencing clicked, you know? I’ve known it was for me since I saw that picture of Coste winning gold, that look on his face—I wanted that. It’s like…every time I looked at that article and every time I passed by a fencing jacket in a shop window and every time I watched a video or snuck in to watch a lesson there was this—this _pull._ Like a current pulling you in. I can’t explain it right—,”

“You don’t have to,” Seiji interrupted again. “I know.” Nick nodded, relieved to not have to try and explain that impossible feeling fencing gave him. Because Seiji knew. Seiji felt it too. Of course he did.

“Don’t ask me why but Robert Coste fits into that somehow for me,” Nick continued cautiously. This part, he knew, people got even less. His mom didn’t understand it. His friends back home didn’t either. He didn’t expect Seiji to but he stood a better chance of it than anyone else Nick knew. “I grew up watching every video of him I could find on the internet. I spent hours and hours just watching him fence, trying to learn how to be like that.” Another sigh tumbled out of Nick, irritation spiking because he knew he wasn’t like Robert Coste. Wasn’t good enough for Robert Coste, no matter how much he wanted to be. Wasn’t good enough for Seiji either. So his next words were bitter and angry. “I don’t give two shits about Jesse other than it pisses me off that you give a hell of a lot of shits about him. It’s Robert I want to fence like. Not Jesse. And I didn’t get anything from him. Everything I have comes from me. And a stupid old newspaper clipping.”

“Okay,” Seiji said. Simple and calm, no heat or anger as was typical when Jesse was being discussed.

“Are you done asking about it?” Nick asked, watching Seiji closely. He mulled it over.

“I think so. It still seems strange to me but I—yes, it explains your fencing, I suppose. It hardly makes sense that Jesse could have been giving you secret lessons or something—,”

“Is that what you thought?”

“No. I just said that wouldn’t make sense. I shouldn’t have blown your similarities to Jesse out of proportion like I did.” It wasn’t meant to sting but it did. Nothing hurt quite like Seiji’s holding him up against Jesse and finding him lacking. “You really learned that from videos?” Seiji asked suddenly.

“Learned what?” Nick, startled, answered at once.

“To fence the way you do. When you’re—you know.”

“Good?” Nick asked, cracking a smile at his own expense. Seiji shook his head.

“Exceptional. When you’re at the top of your game, it’s like—,”

“Don’t say Jesse,” Nick warned.

“Like Robert Coste, then. Happy?”

“Very,” Nick replied. Then realized there’d been a question to all this. “Yeah, I’ve never met them. The Costes. It’s not like I could have learned anything from them, like you said. So. Videos. And stuff. But we can talk about that more later. I want to swing. What do you say?”

“I’ll stop asking about it.” There was something more implied there. _I’ll stop asking about it but I’d like for you to tell me more about it. Eventually. _And Nick would. Eventually.

Nick nodded once and then pushed into Seiji enough to make him lose his footing. Nick saw Seiji’s eyes widen before he jumped out of the way of the swing, snapping forward with Seiji seating haphazardly on it. With a delighted laugh, Nick hopped onto his own neglected swing.

“I bet I can go higher than you!”

* * *

Things changed little by little after their first not-date. On the way back to Kings Row, Seiji’s fingers had hooked around Nick’s the first time they accidentally jostled together. Since then, Nick had learned to watch Seiji’s hands when they were walking. Sometimes, his fingers would uncurl a little, would flex slightly, would look welcoming and receptive. Those times, Nick would slide his fingers between Seiji’s and fit their palms together and breathe a quiet sigh of relief when Seiji didn’t pull away. Sometimes, Seiji beat him to it and he’d find his hand somehow tucked against Seiji’s when it had been flying freely moments before. He liked those times best.

They went out more, did proper date and couple-like things—walking each other to the few classes they didn’t share and, consequently, holding up hallway traffic as they talked until the last minute, mindlessly fixing collars or cuffs or ties or straps of bags that had fallen out of place, and sequestering themselves away during dinner practically every night to eat alone—and they were, as the guys loudly attempted to tease them for, always together. Nick sometimes wondered if they’d slipped into actual dating. He knew they hadn’t. That wasn’t how Seiji did things. But the thought occurred to him occasionally anyway, unbidden and unhelpful.

Now was one of those times. Seiji stood next to Nick and the single table in their room that Nick had spread his homework across. Midterms were coming up and his teachers weren’t going easy on him. Seiji, for his part, was far more organized and had somehow managed to make a tidy nest of math, English, and history homework on his bed—Nick had seen it when he’d gone to the bathroom. Seiji was only out of his nest now to check something in the history textbook Nick had checked out for the weekend. And his ‘quick check’ had already taken ten minutes. Nick wasn’t complaining. Seiji was close enough that a slight shift would bring Nick’s shoulder to brush against Seiji’s chest.

It was this unthinking closeness that made Nick wonder if they might have accidentally crossed the line from _not dating yet _to _dating._ And when he reminded himself that they hadn’t, that they _weren’t_ dating, he thought instead that it would be easy to fix that. _Wouldn’t it?_ Seiji’s easy posture seemed to agree that it would be. His unselfconscious study of the book, which set his face in a concentration that pulled eyebrows low and close together and his mouth into an even more pronounced frown, did too. It was a step closer to how it might have been if Nick hadn’t fucked it all up. This expression was one Nick had made vicious and constant fun of two or so months ago and Seiji had taken care to avoid showing it—ducking his head or staying completely out of sight. Now, though, it was on display. And, far from finding it unappealing like he’d thought it in the past, Nick saw that the dour expression suited Seiji. Stern and severe and sharp. Nick wanted to kiss it all over and break it into a smile and keep that smile all for himself. He wanted to trace all the hard lines of Seiji’s stern face with a thumb and memorize the feel of it. He wanted to kiss that beauty mark that suited Seiji as much as smiles did—not at all, but perfect and beautiful all the same.

“Seiji?” Nick asked. Seiji didn’t startle or snap at the sudden reminder of Nick’s presence, of his attention.

“Hm?” He hummed distractedly, nose still buried in the book and completely unconcerned over the nature of Nick’s attention.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's my goal to get back on our regular schedule so don't worry that this is the new norm! It won't be (at least, not for long)! Love you all <3


	15. Chapter 15

“I like your mole,” Nicholas said, distracting Seiji thoroughly from his preoccupation. He held a finger to his place in the heavy textbook and squinted down at Nicholas.

“My mole?” Seiji repeated blankly. It took him a moment to place the words in relation to himself. Right, he had a mole. Under his eye. He forgot it was there most of the time, even though he must see the blemish every time he looked in a mirror. Hand drifting up absently to his face as if in need to confirm such a thing did exist, Seiji frowned at Nicholas slightly. It was, in his opinion, an odd thing to comment on. An odder thing to like. If Seiji ever thought on the beauty mark, which happened very rarely, it was never with particular fondness.

“Wrong side, dumbass,” Nicholas chortled with glee and Seiji scowled, swiping his hand to the other side of his face to find that Nicholas was right, he’d been looking for it under the wrong eye. Even with Nicholas’s clue, he hadn’t immediately succeeded in locating its exact position on his face, having to search with fingertips for the discrepancy. He’d found it and dropped his hand in less than a second but Nicholas had caught it all and was laughing harder. 

“Shut it,” Seiji warned him, irritated to be laughed at. _And_ he’d lost his place in the text now. Annoyed, he closed the book and dropped it back on the desk. “Why would I know where it is?”

“It’s literally right there, on you, all the time and has been since you were born?” Nicholas offered.

“I don’t pay any attention to it.”

“I do.”

“And that’s weird,” Seiji told him. “I forget I even have a mole but you’ve obviously thought about it enough to develop an opinion. It’s strange.”

“It’s part of your face,” Nicholas said. “Of course I’d notice it. Of course I’d like it. It’s perfect on you.”

Seiji stared at Nicholas again, this time with a mixture of absolute embarrassment and bewilderment. Was he meant to thank Nicholas? For liking a discolored patch of skin on his face? It was definitely an odd thing to like. 

“I can’t believe you didn’t know where your own mole was,” Nicholas was still grinning. 

“Like you’d know any better if it was you,” Seiji snapped, though he was unsure if other people forgot about their own features. He was certain Tanner couldn’t keep track of all _his_ freckles but realized that was an unfair comparison.

“Maybe,” Nicholas said, doubtful. “But I could find yours easy.”

“Because you can see it,” Seiji replied in exasperation. “It doesn’t count.”

Nicholas smiled wider and Seiji knew he’d just unwittingly issued a challenge. Nicholas stood up, the movement bringing him incredibly close to Seiji, and then he very deliberately closed his eyes. Seiji sighed. He shouldn’t have said anything. 

“All I need is a point of reference,” Nicholas said, tentatively reaching out a hand. Seiji considered walking away and leaving Nicholas there. He really did. But, in the end, he gave in and took the hovering hand, leading it gently to his left ear. Nicholas’s thumbed softly against his ear, assessing where his hand had been placed, then, slowly but with precision, Nicholas dragged his fingers across Seiji’s face and landed on his mole with pinpoint accuracy. Nicholas was far too pleased with himself. 

“Told you,” he said, eyes still closed. And then he did the strangest thing.

Nicholas leaned in and kissed the same spot, fingers brushing out of the way to allow his lips space. Seiji froze in alarm. He could hear Nichols’s hand resting like a whisper at his ear again, felt a desire tug at his muscles, begging to press into that hand.

“You’re bizarre,” Seiji said, too quiet, too close to breathless. His heart had hitched in his chest and it didn’t feel like it would start up again until Nicholas was at a safe distance. “Stop being so weird.” But Nicholas didn’t stop. He kissed the mark again, and only after that did he pull away. Even then, not very far, the marginally changed proximity between them doing very little to start Seiji’s heart again. But he didn’t really want Nicholas at a safe distance.

“I’m not the weirdo here,” Nicholas said, amusement alight in his eyes when he opened them. Seiji realized with a start that he wasn’t angry with them anymore. Didn’t see anything malicious or mocking in their amusement like he once had. All he could see now was unapologetic joy and unguarded affection.

Nicholas took a step away, his hand falling from Seiji’s face with a quiet _shhhk_ before slumping back down into the desk chair with a sigh. Seiji stood still a moment, not processing the new distance between them. He shouldn’t have been surprised. This was only a more extreme demonstration of a pattern that had emerged shortly after Nicholas’s confession.

Sometimes, Nicholas got this look on his face, this note in his voice, hesitant and wanting. Seiji hadn’t known what it meant at first. Not until they’d gone to the park and Nicholas had pushed forward farther than he’d ever tried before. He’d had that same look. And then he’d thought better of it and retreated—tried to retreat, at least. And Seiji heard a dozen aborted sentences, saw a parade of abandoned movements, and he’d finally understood. Each one was an instant in which Nicholas had almost asked him out. Almost kissed him. Almost crossed the line Seiji had drawn in the dirt.

Almost.

Nicholas always stopped himself just short of whatever he’d gotten it in his head to do or say. Mostly. Seiji’s fingers found their way back to his beauty mark. He wouldn’t be forgetting about its existence or location any time soon. The spot still felt hot and tingly from the two kisses Nicholas had pressed against it, unforgettable and exhilarating and unfairly tantalizing.

Seiji wished Nicholas hadn’t aborted his intentions tonight.

“Oh fuck,” Nicholas’s voice was loud and brash, startling Seiji from the volume of it alone. “It got late and I’ve still got a billion things due tomorrow,” Nicholas groaned, his head falling onto the desk with a _thud_ and a pathetic little sound of anguish. The speed at which Nicholas’s emotions switched gears was exhausting. Where Seiji had been struggling out of a daze Nicholas had induced, finding it as hard to escape as a pool of heavy and viscous molasses, Nicholas’s mind had already snapped on to other worries.

Seiji swept a glance over the crowded desk, hating homework and studying in that moment more fiercely than he ever had before. Worse than when it kept him up late or pushed him too hard. Worse than when the textbooks weighed down his sports bag at competitions or their words wavered and shook while he tried to read them in vehicles of all sorts. Worse because he’d never felt it press in on time he’d wanted so much to have to himself. And it wasn’t even his homework preventing him from having it. It wasn’t even his time he wanted so much.

“You’d better get to work, then,” Seiji said, sure and firm to cover up the reluctance he felt at letting Nicholas’s attention focus on the homework. He shouldn’t distract Nicholas tonight, no matter how badly he wanted to.


	16. Chapter 16

Seiji was being especially snappy.

“It's not that hard an assignment,” he said when Nick tried ducking out of dinner early to work on the history report he'd been too busy with other homework to work much on. “It won't take you all night, surely.”

“It'll take me all tonight _and _some of the weekend,” Nick grumbled. Seiji wasn't trying to make him feel stupid but his incredulous look was doing a fine job of it anyway. Nick knew he wasn't the most organized person and he was slow to boot. He couldn't crank out pure, concentrated effort the way Seiji could. Unless that effort was directed toward fencing.

“You were busy last night too.”

Nick wasn't sure he'd heard right. For one thing, Seiji had said it under his breath as he stabbed aggressively at his food. For another, it sounded sulky and petulant which weren't moods Nick generally associated with Seiji. But there’d been a definite sulk about him lately. Nick had noticed it—had noticed other things too—but he'd been too busy to do anything about it.

He was too busy for a lot of things lately.

“Seiji,” Nick started, not really sure what he intended to say. He didn't have to say anything more, though, because Seiji was standing up briskly.

“You should go work on history,” he said. He said it, or something very like it, a lot lately.

“Seiji,” Nick tried again, really not knowing what he was going to say but feeling like he ought to say something because Seiji had lit up brilliantly crimson, looking that same brand of furiously humiliated Nick had teased out of him tons of times. But this time he didn't think he’d really done anything to produce it.

“It's fine,” Seiji waved off Nick's concern and left him in the dust.

“For Christ’s—,” Nick scooped up his dinner and cleared it with record speed, chasing after the polished heel of his not-yet-boyfriend. “Seiji!”

Seiji stopped but Nick grabbed the crook of his elbow anyway.

“Go do your homework, Nicholas,” he said. “It was juvenile of me to complain.” Seiji was pink and miserable and Nick was torn between teasing and comforting.

“You could just come with me, you know.” Nick slid his fingers down from Seiji's elbow to his wrist and finally to his hand. Seiji regraded the result for a moment.

“The library?” He asked. Nick snorted.

“No. We always get interrupted there.”

“Our room only has one desk and its far from my bed.”

Nick started walking, tugging Seiji behind him. “Stop being difficult. You can have the desk and I'll sit on my bed. Or you could sit on my bed. Or we could both just be on the bed. There's tons of options so come on.”

Seiji was surprisingly adorable sometimes, pouting over Nick's current study schedule and over the configuration of their room placing them too far apart during studying for Seiji's taste. It was especially endearing how obviously embarrassed Seiji was by his own behavior.

  


* * *

  


“Nick? You paying attention, bro?” Eugene asked.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Sorry,” Nick said, then, after an unconvinced look from Eugene, “I’m paying attention _now._”

“Things with Seiji are still complicated, I take it.” That wasn’t what Eugene had been talking about before. Nick hadn’t been listening but he was sure the question now was only because Nick had been paying attention to Seiji instead of whatever Eugene had actually been talking about.

“Yeah,” Nick felt worry tugging his mouth into a frown.

“I don’t get why,” Eugene said, looking from Nick to Seiji, across the room and in the middle of a match with Harvard, and back again. “You guys are dating in every way I can see.” Nick didn’t take reassurance. Eugene clapped his shoulder. “You having trouble with the ways I’m _not_ seeing, then?”

“What?” Nick didn’t put it together until Eugene’s smirk appeared. “No,” Nick said, shrugging off the hand still on his shoulder. “It’s not that. We’re not—kissing and whatever—,”

“And whatever,” Eugene repeated. Just to be annoying. Nick ignored it.

“Because we’re not actually dating. Yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because—,” but Nick didn’t have a good answer. Because he genuinely thought Seiji still needed more time? He shook his head, tiny and more for his benefit than anything. “Because I haven’t asked him.”

“Why not?” Eugene asked again but with more emphasis. “You can’t seriously think he’ll say no.”

They both watched Seiji take a swig of water. Nick had lost track of the score. _I bet Seiji won._ Seiji always won.

“No,” he said, sighing as he forced himself to stop ogling Seiji. “I don’t think he’d say no.” Not now, anyway. Not anymore.

It was like how Nick had been able to tell that Seiji liked him in the first place. At the time, Seiji had given himself away with furtive glances, constant preening, picked fights. A blush. Now, Seiji gave himself away with expectant, hopeful looks, self-conscious clinginess, impatience with Nick’s slowness at assignments he’d long since completed. Lots of blushes.

“Then what’s the holdup?” Eugene asked, sounding like he thought Nick was being dumb. He was probably right.

“It’s just that,” Nick thought, tried to put together his thoughts in a way that would make sense. “We’re working so well as it is, you know?”

“But if you date for real, you could work so well _and_ kiss. And whatever.”

“Fuck off, I’m serious. What if dating ruins it? What if I fuck up? What if I—,” _hurt him again? _

“You fuck off,” Eugene said, still cheery. “I don’t know how you think you can fuck it up at this point. You two are always fighting over the dumbest things. But you’re just like a rubber band.”

“A what?”

“Rubber band,” Eugene repeated confidently. “You get all pissed with each other, that’s when the rubber band is stretched all tight, yeah? But you always snap back together. Seiji’s too stubborn to let that rubber band break. And even if it did, you’re too persistent to let it stay broken. You’d just tie it together again.”

“I thought you said we _were_ the rubber band. But now you’re talking about it like it’s its own thing.”

“It’s a metaphor. One day, you’ll learn about those. Around the same time you’ll learn about _whatever_.”

“I don’t know why I thought talking to you would help,” Nick said, shoving a shoulder into Eugene. He laughed. Retaliated with an elbow.

“It _did_ help. But if you’d wanted nice help you’d have gone to Bobby.”

“My mistake.”

“You’ll learn—,”

Nick groaned. “Yeah, yeah, alright, Yoda, thanks for the advice.”

“Sure thing.”

“What did you want, anyway?”

Eugene squinted at him, noncomprehending. “Oh!” He said, snapping his fingers as if he’d just remembered something. Which, clearly, he had. “I was asking if you were free tonight.”

“No,” Nick said glumly. Even if he were free, he'd owe the night to Seiji. He wished he were free. “I can't do anything but study tonight or I'll fail about ten classes.”

Eugene pulled a face. “I feel your pain, my man. Can't even spare an hour?”

“Not unless I don't want to sleep at all.”

“Talking about midterms?” Aiden asked, coming up behind them.

“You know it,” Eugene replied. “Nick's not accustomed to Kings Row’s caliber of test-taking bullshittery.”

“I'm not used to caring about any test-taking bullshittery,” Nick returned at once, unable to help the defensive impulse. “I can handle it.”

“Of course you can,” Aiden cajoled. “But I still say finals and midterms would be better if they involved more stabbing.”

“There's an idea,” Nick agreed.

“Battle Royale style,” Eugene put in eagerly. “Last man standing passes!”

“With the whole school?” Harvard asked, joining in the conversation, near enough now to hear it.

“Yes!”

“But then only one person passes at all,” Nick said. “And it would be Seiji. And he doesn't need any stabbing related help to get top of the class.”

Seiji looked up sharply from his cool-down stretches. He'd heard his name but he didn't come over to join in. Nick jerked his head, asking Seiji to come over. He did, but not until enough time had passed that it looked more like his idea than Nick's.

“But I can best Seiji more reliably than the rest of you can,” Aiden sang just as Seiji decided to come over. Seiji’s jaw twitched in irritation but he'd gotten better at ignoring Aiden both on and off the strip. “So I'd be the winner.”

“Not unless I get to you first,” Nick shot.

Eugene held up a hand, indicating he had something important to say. “What if we dogpiled on Seiji and got him out of the running first off?”

“I'd win,” Seiji’s eyes were narrowed like he thought Eugene was seriously challenging him.

“Against all the other fencers in school? All at once?”

“Yes.”

“Nick was right, you are smugger than a bag of peacocks.”

“What does that even mean? Would peacocks really be that smug if they were in a bag?” Aiden wondered.

Nick glared at Eugene. He felt Seiji’s glare on him from his other side. “I only said that once,” he snapped. “And it was ages ago.”

“You’re not denying you still agree with it,” Aiden pointed out. Seiji wasn't getting any happier.

“You're a little smug,” Nick said, turning to Seiji and demonstrating how minuscule a portion of smugness he thought Seiji possessed with his finger and thumb, closer together than they truthfully should be. “But I'm sure you could take on every fencer at Kings Row at once, no problem,” he amended at Seiji’s unimpressed and unchanging glare. Aiden rolled his eyes. Eugene made a good-natured gagging expression.

“Would the non-fencers be held to the same rules?” Harvard asked. “In this scenario, would _everyone_ have to fight to the death for an A? Or just the fencers?”

“Woah, upping the ante,” Eugene exclaimed. “Battle to the literal death. I love it.”

“Yes, all students have to duel,” Aiden said to Harvard.

“Dante would love that.” Nick was imagining the irritation such a decree would cause the guy. _Fence or fail. _He'd probably rather fail. Everyone knew he only tolerated so much fencing talk because of Bobby.

“He'd be doomed,” Eugene said. “I saw Bobby trying to teach him some basic footwork once. Didn't go well.”

“He'd have Bobby to protect him, though,” Aiden smirked. And it was admittedly a funny picture, tiny Bobby fending off students, Dante’s considerable height cowering behind him.

“He could probably take out a good number of guys with a punch or two, no blade required,” Nick said, then shook his head. “For real, stabbing instead of studying would be great. But I've got a lot of studying so I'd better get going.”

That was the general consensus among the whole group and when they parted after brief showers and quick changes, there was lots of grumbling about work still needing to be done, and hopeful suggestions of activities for after midterms had passed.

There were tons of activities Nick was looking forward to and all of them involved Seiji. He snagged Seiji’s hand and held it loosely—in case Seiji wanted to tug away—all the way back to their room.

“Almost done with this shit,” Nick said, forced to drop Seiji’s hand so he could toss aside his sports bag and pull up his schoolbag instead, rummaging through it for the homework he had to do.

“Almost,” Seiji agreed.

“Friday night we should do something.” Friday night, he'd be done with everything else. Seiji regarded him for a long moment, trying to figure out what sort of something Nick had in mind. He nodded, a smile fighting against his down-set lips for the first time all day. Whatever conclusion he'd come to, it had been good enough.


	17. Chapter 17

Seiji was sure that he was ready to date Nicholas. That he really, truly, _wanted _to. The trouble was midterms. Theoretically, this wasn’t new. Seiji had already been through a quarter’s worth of testing periods with Nicholas for a roommate. He had been in a similar state of frantic studying and constant stress during those times as well, and Seiji was prepared for the late nights filled with grumbling and a brighter-than-usual light shining from the desk rather than shielded behind the thin curtain. What he hadn’t been prepared for was the drain on Nicholas’s time affecting him so much.

In the past, Seiji’s relationship with Nicholas had been antagonistic and limited. They’d been burgeoning toward friendship during finals last quarter but they hadn’t been—well, they hadn’t been together more often than they were apart. They hadn’t been whatever they were now. _Taken, not dating._ They were taken with and by each other, certainly, and neither of them had bothered with subtlety for quite some time. Now, Seiji found the sudden theft of Nicholas’s attention, which had fallen almost exclusively on him until recently, to be more disagreeable than he’d have liked to admit.

He admitted it anyway, sometimes without meaning to. Nicholas was always taken by _this_, too, which made no sense to Seiji. But Nicholas would always accommodate his requests for attention—which were not always purposeful and not always verbally given but Nicholas never missed them and he never dismissed or ignored them either. Seiji hated how much he liked it. Hated that Nicholas was enabling his unseemly behavior. Hated that he was encouraged to ask for more because he knew that Nicholas would give it to him. 

It was all especially inconvenient because Seiji wanted Nicholas’s attention more than ever. And he wanted it to mean more than it had before. He wanted Nicholas and, suddenly, it seemed very hard to be patient. He felt like he’d been waiting a long time already. The desire to ask for more time, attention, and affection from Nicholas pushed at him from the inside, fighting to escape in words or gestures or sighs or meaningful glances that lingered even after they’d been spotted. But it didn’t seem fair to distract Nicholas. He hardly ever prioritized school over—frankly, over _anything_. And Seiji had held his spot at the top of Nicholas’s priorities for more than was fair. Two weeks wasn’t such a long time to give up to school, all things considered.

_All things _including the reality that Nicholas staying at Kings Row was dependent on two things—his place on the fencing team, which he had, and his grades. Which he’d keep up. So long as Seiji didn’t direct his attention elsewhere too much or too often. It was a startlingly difficult task but Seiji had self-control. At least, he did in most things.

_Friday night we should do something, _Nicholas said in his mind.

“Becoming acquainted with your mole?” Nicholas asked him, not in his mind at all. Seiji was back in the present at once. First, he was aware of Nicholas’s smirking face. Second, he was aware of his own face and found it smiling. Third, he was aware of his fingers tapping lightly atop his cheekbone, just under his left eye. He pulled his hands away from his face, arranging his expression into something fiercer. But it was too late and no amount of fierceness could hide his embarrassment. Nicholas’s expression shifted too, into something softer and sweeter than that smirk had been.

“Don’t start,” Seiji warned. Nicholas didn’t. He only brushed a thumb across Seiji’s cheek for no apparent reason and then turned back to his lunch. Seiji tried to do the same but he was caught again by the thought of tonight.

He wasn’t sure what, exactly, he should expect but he was looking forward to it anyway. He wondered if he might get another kiss. His hand was already floating up to his beauty mark again and he froze it in its path with a frown. He couldn’t let that develop into a habit. But when he thought of the possibilities for tonight—_Friday night we should do something_—he couldn’t help the thought of possible kisses. Which brought on the memory of kisses. Two of them. Shamelessly pressed to his mole. Just there. He could almost feel the strange heat of it still. He could never really recapture the sensation though, not with just his fingertips. It was pointless to try.

_Maybe I can stop trying, _he thought. _After tonight._

* * *

Third and fourth period had dragged on forever, not least because of the test in fourth. Nicholas had spent the walk to their room quizzing Seiji on his answers to compare. Seiji was sure Nicholas had done fine—he always did fine. But Nicholas still wouldn’t drop the subject. Soon, though, he’d be done with all that. Soon, Nicholas would—_something_. Seiji wasn’t sure what but he’d been alarmingly jittery with anticipation the whole day.

When Nicholas finally rambled to a stop, Seiji rested a hip against a patch of wall near the head of Nicholas’s bed. He was pretty sure he’d managed to pull off a casual and enticing posture, judging by Nicholas’s prolonged and entirely interested appraisal of him. He didn’t feel particularly casual or enticing. He felt nervous and giddily excited. This had to be it.

“Are you done?” Seiji asked, keeping his voice even.

“Uh,” Nicholas said in reply. “Yeah. Yes. I’m all done with school and—,” his eyes went impossibly wide and Seiji could only describe the look in them as panic. “Shit!”

“What?”

“Shitshitshitshit _shit!”_

“What?” Seiji asked again, some of Nicholas’s panic bleeding into his own mood and taking his thoughts harried and improbable places. Places like _what if he’s realized just now that he _doesn’t _like me? _And _what if this was all a prank after all and he’s just forgotten how to deliver the punchline? _“What is it?” He snapped. Not because he honestly thought this crisis had anything to do with him, but because he was irritated with himself for thinking it at all. For thinking so negatively of Nicholas. And that irritation had exploded from him. Nicholas grimaced.

“I forgot about the essay for history,” he said, quiet and shellshocked. Seiji stared at him in disbelief.

“The one due tonight?”

“Shit. Yeah. _Fuck.”_ Nicholas was scrambling for his bag, shock wearing off into a frenzy of movement.

“You—did you start it at all?”

“Kinda? I had an outline and—I just can’t believe I forgot to—I’m so fucked!”

Selfishly, Seiji felt a pang of irritation. And, this time, it was all directed at Nicholas. For forgetting to do something so important. For saying they’d _do something_ tonight and then remembering that very important thing. For gathering up all his stuff and heading for the door like a bat out of hell.

“I’ll be back—shit, Seiji, I’m so sorry, I just—I gotta do this—,” Nicholas was saying. He could always read Seiji too well. Obviously, he could read this, too. Seiji was instantly ashamed.

“I’ll help,” he offered. Nicholas paused at the door, looking back at him dubiously.

“No offense, but I’m in too fragile an emotional state to let you _help_ right now.”

“I’ll be nice.”

“No. You won’t.”

Seiji knew he was a little tougher on essay critiques than most people preferred but he didn’t think he was _that_ bad. He frowned.

“Don’t be such a baby, Nicholas. Your essay will be better for my help, you know that’s true. Is it really so important you protect your sensitive—,”

“Yeah, see what I mean? You don’t have it in you to be gentle at the moment and honestly, I need nice, gentle help right now.”

“I could—,”

“No. You can’t.” Nicholas had his mouth quirked up into a fond and amused smile, temporally breaking through his panic. Seiji huffed. It was, as he’d suspected, abundantly clear to Nicholas that he was disappointed and aggravated at this turn of events. Seiji knew he got especially impatient and unsympathetic with Nicholas’s plight when he wanted Nicholas to hurry up and finish. He already had to fight down the urge to snap at Nicholas and ask him how disorganized he had to be to forget to do an entire essay.

“No,” Seiji finally agreed. “I can’t.”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can, okay?”

Seiji thought about saying that he ought to just stay here and work. But Nicholas was probably right to escape from any and all distractions. From him. Seiji didn’t trust himself not to inadvertently make the already difficult task of writing an essay in one night worse by splitting Nicholas’s focus.

“At least have Kally look over it before you turn it in.”

Nicholas threw up two fingers in a peace sign before slamming out of the room. Seiji supposed he was meant to take that as an okay.

Seiji watched the door in what he was chagrined to admit was a forlorn way. He hadn’t stared after Nicholas so pathetically since the start of his hopeless crush. His hopeless crush that wasn’t actually very hopeless. And yet it was somehow still frustrating. Unfruitful.

Decisively, Seiji cut his gaze from the door and swept it across the empty room, catching on Nicholas’s empty bed. ‘Empty’ was a strong word for the state of the bed, truth be told. It was cluttered with blankets and pillows, comics and textbooks, and clothes that may or may not have been clean. It was worse this week than usual—though it was usually pretty bad. Midterms had exacerbated all of Nicholas’s messy habits.

Almost all of them.

The bathroom had been left tidy and dry even on Nicholas’s busiest days. Nicholas had contained his clutter to his own spaces so well that Seiji had started to take it for granted. He'd started to take Nicholas for granted too. He was unsure if that was a good or a bad thing and his eyes went unfocused on the bed as he tried to decide. It was impossible to think, though, with such a mess right in front of him.

It was impulse that made Seiji’s hand dart out and gather Nicholas’s reading material together. And then he figured he might as well commit to the task and moved the stack over to the desk, neatly shuffling it into place. Then he swept the clothes off the bed. There was no discerning which among them needed the hamper, and Seiji didn’t relish the idea of cleaning up after Nicholas to such an extent as sorting his laundry anyway. So all the clothes that had been on the bed were added to the pile of clothes on the floor. And the blankets got smoothed and arranged just enough to make the bed habitable.

Seiji had come to a decision. He wasn’t convinced that taking things for granted was a good thing but he liked that he could take Nicholas for granted anyway. And he didn’t plan on waiting until tomorrow for Nicholas. He’d been promised tonight and he’d have it, even if it was a later start than anticipated. After all, once Seiji had set his mind to getting something, he got it. And he’d set his mind on this.

After changing out of uniform and grabbing a book—one he actually wanted to read instead of the schoolbooks that had eaten all his reading time for the past week—Seiji settled in to wait for Nicholas. He was going to get what he wanted.


	18. Chapter 18

Nick felt completely drained. He felt shot through with adrenaline and deflated from the exit wounds. He’d been filled up with an adrenaline and panic cocktail that had kept him going for almost seven hours of historical research and essay writing. Now that he’d submitted the assignment, it had left him and he was nothing but a hollow shell of vague worry without it.

He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten all about the stupid essay. He’d never had things due after school hours before, though. His old school hadn’t used any online components so he wasn’t used to the idea of Friday night homework…Still, it was a pretty big thing to forget. Nick had been sure he’d miss the submission window and he’d be locked out of the assignment. He _had_ gotten through it, though. The essay was even readable. Kally had helped him; Nick wasn’t sure if Kally had been conveniently in the library already or if Seiji had texted him. Kally had been too polite to say and Nick had been too desperate to care. He owed Kally big time for the help.

_And Seiji…_Nick sighed. He owed Seiji a lot for ditching him tonight even though he’d been the one to say they should hang out. And for ignoring all his unsubtle hints that he wanted to strikethrough the _not yet _before their _boyfriend_ status. Nick wouldn’t be surprised if Seiji decided to punish him for this with a cold shoulder. He deserved it.

Nick pushed into their room, not surprised to find the light still on—Seiji usually waited up for him when he was out and vice versa, but Nick wouldn’t have been surprised to find him asleep tonight either. A head start on a cold shoulder wasn’t outside the realm of possibilities but Nick hadn’t expected it any more or less than the other option. So he wasn’t suspired that Seiji was awake. He was surprised, though, by Seiji’s location.

“You’re on my bed,” he said. Then winced. Obviously, Seiji was on his bed. And pointing it out seemed like a very uncool move. He should have played it off all suave. But he was too tired to pretend like this was at all normal. At all expected.

“You’re back,” Seiji said, closing his book—smaller than his usual selection, still massive by Nick’s standards—and strained to reach the desk. He just barely managed to put his book on it, right next to all of Nick’s books. Books that had been on his bed with a bunch of other stuff when he’d left the room hours ago. Now the only thing on the bed was Seiji…

Seiji and the pillow he’d stuffed under his chest for support.

Because Seiji was on his stomach, knees bent up and legs crossed at the ankle.

And on Nick’s bed.

The pose should have struck Nick as childish. He found it stupidly sexy instead. All strong arms holding Seiji up, all arched back and soft curve of ass, all long legs. All on _his_ bed.

Seiji watched Nick, probably expecting him to further conversation. But Nick was too distracted.

“Did you finish your essay?”

“Uh…yeah. Yes. For real, I’m completely done with midterms.”

“Took you long enough. If you’d just keep a planner like I keep telling you—,”

“Yeah, I know,” Nick said. He’d been lectured a lot on the importance of planners and Seiji wasn’t the only culprit.

“I’m glad you’re done,” Seiji said.

“Me too.” Nick finally dropped his bag. “And you—,”

“We don’t have practice tomorrow,” Seiji cut him off, a light blush visible on his cheeks if you looked hard enough. Nick was always looking hard enough. “And no assignments to work on. I’ve been patient with your disorganized progress through midterms but now you’re done and I think it’s time you—,”

“Pay proper attention to you?” Nick couldn’t help but say it, light and teasing. But he liked that even in this, Seiji was practical. No more homework needing to be done. No practice tomorrow. No reason not to stay up late. It was cute how he got like that, clingy but reserved. Needy but practical. Petulant but embarrassed about it.

“Yes, actually,” Seiji said, wiping the smirk off Nick’s face. Or changing it, more like. Nick liked this too. Liked when Seiji owned up to wanting something unapologetically.

“I didn’t think you had it in you to act so needy.” Nick’s tone implied that he liked it. Seiji went a deeper shade of red.

“Are you really that surprised? You know I’m used to getting what I want. And you know I’ve wanted you for ages. And I know you’ll give me what I want tonight.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Obviously,” Seiji said, “or I wouldn’t have waited for you.” Had he been waiting on Nick’s bed this whole time? Something in Nick’s stomach turned pleasantly at the thought.

“Yeah, okay, you’re right,” Nick said, kicking his bag out of the way as he came to the foot of his bed. “Anything you want,” he said, and Seiji’s head bent up to peer at him, exposing a tantalizing stretch of neck. “I’ll give you.”

“Good.” Seiji pushed himself back into a sitting position and it looked more provocative than Seiji had probably meant it. He just couldn’t help himself, arching back so fluidly and gracefully to sit on his heels, any more than a cat could help stretching in the same manner. He met Nick’s eyes steadily and said: “Date me.”

“Got tired of waiting?” Nick asked, feeling nervous for no reason. No. For this reason: this was it. Finally. Here it was. And Seiji was kneeling on his bed, his shirt slightly out of place. Asking Nick to date him. Or telling him to. It was really happening.

“And come here,” Seiji held out his hand, palm up like he was asking for something. Nick just stared at it for a moment. “You said anything,” Seiji insisted, flaring out his fingers in a reiterated summons. Nick saw the slightest tremor in them. Seiji was nervous too. But still so stubbornly proud and confident.

Nick smiled, his brain and legs finally kicking into gear, and went where he’d been bidden. As soon as he’d stopped in place, Seiji rose up on his knees and tilted forward with intention, his outreached hand coming at Nick so fast, his first thought was of fencing. But instead of striking a blow in any of Nick’s unguarded quadrants—which was all of them—he wrapped it around the back of Nick’s neck and yanked him forward so his legs bumped into the bed frame. Then another arm was around Nick’s waist and then—

Nick stood stupidly still, scared to move and ruin anything. But then Seiji was pulling away, his lips leaving Nick’s, and he was even more scared that he’d ruined it by not reacting. He caught Seiji’s retreating face in both his hands and pulled it back to him, to kiss him properly.

All the wanting and longing he’d held contained in him for so long overflowed, all of it into Seiji. Into his mouth that Nick kissed open and found welcome entry to. Into the base of his skull where fingers pressed hard enough to be felt but not hard enough to hurt. Into his biceps and shoulders and back when one hand made the journey down Seiji’s body to rest, finally, at a hipbone, Nick’s thumb tracing the line of it again and again. Into his chest, directly from Nick’s heart into his. They were pressed close enough to tangle which frantic heartbeat belonged to which frantic boy.

“Nicholas,” Seiji said. But Nick didn’t hear it, not really. He felt it vibrate through his mouth and the taste of it—of Seiji’s call for him—sent a shiver through him. He’d never be rid of the wanting and the longing. He’d never be able to pour it all out and into this—into Seiji. It was impossible. Because it was infinite, more of it coming to replace every bit he’d disbanded.

Nick had more affection for Seiji than he knew what to do with. Another kiss, and another, and another. Nick’s head felt light with the joy of it all. He had to break from the kisses then because his huge smile was getting in the way of them. Seiji was smiling, too, but it was a small thing, unobtrusive and quiet. Nick kissed the corner of it, then kissed his cheek, then kissed his mole. And then again. And again. And Again. And Seiji was laughing, pushing into his chest with his hands, twisting his head away from Nick’s reach.

“Stop it,” he gasped, breathless from kissing and laughing and sounding absolutely perfect. “Stop being so weird about my mole.”

Nick kissed the mole again. Because Seiji hadn’t twisted far enough to escape from it and they both knew it.

“Don’t pretend you don’t like it,” he said between more kisses.

“Are you some sort of beauty mark pervert?” Seiji asked. But he wasn’t even pretending he wanted away from it now, allowing Nick to kiss the mark once more without trouble.

“Actually,” Nick said, head nestling next to Seiji’s and mouth right by his ear. “I’m a _mol_ester.” He only waited a moment before pulling away and saying, “Get it?”

Seiji’s face made it clear that he’d gotten the joke and thought it was terrible. Which was his usual reaction to Nick’s sense of humor.

“I’m breaking up with you, that was the worst pun I’ve ever heard.”

“You can’t break up with me!” Nick was losing it, laughing hysterically over his own joke and Seiji’s disdain. “You walked right into that one. And I don’t remember agreeing we were dating so you really can’t break up with me.”

Seiji let go of him and withdrew completely, sitting back on his haunches and looking up at Nick.

“No, you didn’t actually agree, did you?” He asked.

“I was kidding!” Nick said quickly, cursing himself for saying dumb shit without thinking about it. He should have known that was the wrong thing to say. Seiji had ceased all contact so quickly, what if he thought Nick had pranked him? That this was the punchline? “We’re dating. I want to be dating. I like you so much and I think we should go on a date tomorrow, after sleeping in until noon because we stayed up so late. I was totally and completely kidding.”

“I know,” Seiji said, smile breaking through his surly countenance. “I just wanted to hear you say it.”

“You little—,” Nick thought better of finishing that sentence and plopped down on the bed next to Seiji, twining fingers into his hair and guiding him forward until forehead knocked against forehead. “Yes, I’ll date you. In case that wasn’t clear.”

“So, do I get to call you Nicky now?” Seiji asked. Once Nick had placed the comment into context, he laughed, remembering a stop at a gas station and a rack of keychains and a blushing neck a row ahead of him on the bus.

“Sure,” he said, “if you really want to.” It was a joke in the way that they were both well aware Seiji didn’t really want to. But that wasn’t important. It was the knowledge that he _could_ if he wanted to that Seiji wanted, Nick was sure.

“This seems impossible,” Seiji said, his thumb pressing into the pulse at Nick’s wrist, his hand having somehow found its way around Nick’s. Nick closed his eyes and felt the moment. He knew what Seiji meant. It did feel a little impossible. “All I’ve really wanted to call you for months is my boyfriend.”

“Congratulations, you got what you wanted.”

“I know. I’m good at that.”

“I’m glad. I’m so fucking glad you waited so long for me.” Nick wasn’t only talking about tonight.

“I’m glad you didn’t get over me, either. While we waited for each other.”

“Are you kidding me?” Nick asked, stealing another kiss. “There was never a chance in hell of that. I _can’t_ get over you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fucking shit guys. Extra special thanks to you for hanging in for this one, I know my updates got all out of whack (which means I'm the most miserable person in the world because writing is what I do to be happy and de-stress so yeah, it's been a hell of a semester thus far). One of the many reasons this one took longer was because I got caught in midterms, so I thought it was kind of funny that I was writing the midterm chapters during my midterms and I got to write this one right after turning in my last assignment for that clusterfuck!  
Anyway, thank you again for being so patient and understanding and, of course, for all the love you sent my way <33 I don't know what I did to deserve you all but know that I love you with all of my heart!!! 💜💜💜


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